Stand by Me

Rating: 6/10 (28 April 2019)

Bought to you by the Steven Spielberg fan club, they even get Spielberg in as the Executive Producer.
Super 8 is a homage to the kind of movies Spielberg made or produced in the 1970s and 80s.
Set in 1979, in a small town in Ohio. A group of kids make a zombie movie during their holidays. While they are filming at night, a train crashes into a truck and derails. It is captured on camera.
Soon strange things happen in the town and the military moves in to do a clean up. The train had a strange cargo and it is now escaped.
As for the kids. Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) are the main characters both linked to each other through a tragedy which resulted in Joe's mother's death at the steel mill.
Joe's father is the deputy sheriff, Jack Lamb (Kyle Chandler) who dislikes Alice's dad who he blames for the accident at the factory as he could not do his shift as he was drunk. However both men unite to save their kids with something on the loose.
JJ Abrams has made a nostalgic film that crosses several genres with shades of Goonies and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In short it is a tribute to Steven Spielberg.
It is well acted especially by Elle Fanning. The ending did look rushed and the monster was disappointing.