A fantastically entertaining, old school movie

Rating: 7/10 (12 June 2011)

I'm just going to say this upfront, Super 8 is now one of my favorite movies. It is one of the most thrilling , emotional, well-acted and just all around entertaining movies I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot of movies. It brings back that old school movie feel of wonder and innocence that made movies like E.T. , Stand By Me, and the Goonies , the classics that they are now and I think Super 8 is right in the same league. But Super 8 has another side to it as well, it's a monster movie. This aspect is obviously modeled after other Spielberg classics like Jurassic Park and Jaws and uses some of the same techniques to great effect.
As I said above, the acting is amazing. All the kids are absolutely fantastic they really act like real teenagers- the way they talk, the way they act and all their different quirks are all hilarious. It's so fun watching them all together. The adults are all great too particularly Kyle Chandler who plays the main character, Joe's, father. He perfectly displays his difficulty in the situation he is in and his lack of communication with his son.
Super 8 is actually a very emotional movie. Joe and his father have been through some tragic events and they are still trying to cope with their loss. There is some real depth in the emotional scenes and this makes you care more for the character and it makes the movie much more intense when the action starts heating up. That brings me to the next great aspect of the movie, the action.
There are some very intense scenes in Super 8. The movie has one of the most awesome scenes of destruction (the train crash) I have seen in a movie, and its in the first thirty minutes. After this is when the unseen monster starts causing havoc. What's great is that you hardly ever see the monster. It's just like Jaws, the less you see, the scarier things are. This makes it so that once you see the monster it is very satisfying.
There are flaws in the movie such as the drastic change in tones between the lighthearted events with the kids to the pretty dark and violent scenes with the monster, and the movie ends a little bit too soon, but this is all negligible because the movie is so entertaining, moving, and heartfelt.
http://evsmoviezone.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/review-super-8/