Especially Great for Spielberg Fans & Baby Boomers!

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2012)

It's rare that a film comes along about kids and has a science fiction touch yet communicates the joys and the frustrations of growing up than Super 8.
Super 8 was apparently billed as a disaster film with aliens, etc. In truth, it's not about the alien at all. It's about kids growing up in a rural town, trying to do something special with themselves.
My Impressions: The film starts out with a funeral. A child loses his mother early on. A man comes over and is immediately thrown out of the house! Right here you wonder what the heck is going on! We find out soon enough. I think I found the story within the story of what Abrams was trying to do. It's semi-autobiographical. Spielberg and Abrams were both into making films as kids and it stuck.
The actual filmmaking was fun to see: they set up with funky scripts, a zombie who just would not stay dead, and a kid who wanted "production value" in all his shots! However, a train wreck, a fallen camera and an Area 51 scientist who also happened to be their science teacher changed all that.
The train wreck special effects were amazing and horrific. The look on the love-struck kid when he thought Alice was dead was heart-touching.
Favorite Scenes: Father's Faith: Without giving too much away, our hero discovers a film that was made with his mother when he was growing up. Alice sits with him in his room as the power comes on. The scenes project and Alice begins to cry, realizing that if her father took that shift at the steel mill that day, the tragic accident that took his mother "should have" taken her father.
The theme of dysfunctional parents that actually do love their children and overcoming that dysfunctional was great to see.
Amateur Horror Film: During the credits we actually get to see the full film that the kids were making, right down to the pipe and the armchair, the zombie and the chemical plant, etc. Fun to watch! I actually did something like this myself when I was 17 or so.
Music! The memories of the late 70s came back to me. The music and the excitement are really great.
Hackneyed Themes: Yes there were some "I've seen this before" themes of government abuse, secrets, abducting the alien (!), it escapes, the misunderstood scientist, the innocent children that make it right while the adults are clueless.
But it's HOW Abrams and Spielberg put these themes together, with a few twists (the fathers' involvement) and the success these filmmakers did in recreating the time period, the attitudes, the 1950s horror alien invasion Grade B style, that makes this film so charming.
Bottom Line: There are some scenes where the kids swear like truck drivers; it's not a lot but parents should know. Highly recommend this film, especially for those who grew up in the 70s, enjoyed Journey and Blondie, and loved the film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The trailers make believe this film is a typical invasion story. That's done on purpose. It's a coming of age story that is charming in its execution. Highly recommended.