Super 8: Cloverfield takes Ohio

Super 8 tells the story of a group of aspiring film makers (aspiring HORROR film makers) who, while filming their latest prepubescent zombie movie, encounter a horrible train crash in the middle of the night. Unbeknown to the kids, their super 8 camera captures a government secret that soon has their town experiencing a sequence of strange events.

Super 8 had A LOT of hype surrounding it. JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg seemed like a match made in cinema heaven. Before it was even released Super 8 was already being called the modern E.T., so, did it live up to the hype?

Well, let's start with the acting. A movie starring mostly children has potentially to have really bad acting or extremely impressive acting. Super 8 most definitely had the latter. One thing that truly impressed me about the performance of the child actors was their ability to act in very serious, emotional scenes and then be able to actually act as kids who are bad actors. The kid's zombie movie ("The Case") that they continuously attempt to make throughout the film had the actors and actress acting as if they couldn't act. Maybe it's because my brother is in the industry that I was so impressed by the ability of the children in the film, but regardless, it blew me away.

Speaking of the film-within-a-film, "The Case", which can be viewed in its entirety during the credits of the film was a lot of fun to watch and had some very obvious nods to the horror genre (Romero Chemicals). Make sure that when you see this film you stay for the credits and watch "The Case", it was worth it.

The next thing worth talking about was the plot. JJ Abrams never fails in writing extraordinary films and television shows, so its obvious that Super 8's script was very well written. It contained some likable characters with deep and interesting back stories that had you truly caring for each and every one of them. The very character driven plot didn't really have any dull moments, making the film very watchable despite its 112 minute run time.

Now for the things that I didn't like about the film.

The first was the way it was marketed. JJ Abrams is known for, among other things, his monster film Cloverfield, which kept its city destroying bad guy a secret up until the very end of movie. The whole allure of Cloverfield was the mystery. It was obvious that they tried to replicate this with Super 8. As successful as the Cloverfield marketing was, if JJ Abrams is just going to continue making films that people will mostly want to see because they want to know what the monster looks like, he'll soon fall into M Night Shyamalan  territory, which is something I don't want to see happen because I do honestly believe that Abrams could be the next Spielberg.

WARNING: AHEAD BE SPOILERS!

The next thing was the monster. Again, it couldn't be more obvious that this is the same guy who directed Cloverfield....because the monster was almost exactly the same but on a smaller scale. No doubt both monsters were cool, but they were just a bit too similar in looks. The perfect way to describe it is the offspring of the  Cloverfield monster and Prince Goro from Mortal Kombat.

For me, an awesome monster in a sci-fi/horror film is key, so re-using a monster is kind of like a cop out.

Also, a lot about the monster wasn't explained. It was revealed that he was a monster from outer space who had crash landed on earth and then kept imprisoned by the U.S. government but there were a lot of things I didn't quite get. Where was the monster from? Why was he subterranean on earth? Why did he capture people and then hang them upside down in his underground cave? What was the point of his telepathic abilities? Why did the military feel it was necessary to keep him a secret? These questions bring us to our next issue...

What's with all the damn unanswered questions! Come on JJ, learn from Lost. Why did all the dogs run away? Why did the monster create an underground lair in the first place? Why did the military burn the whole town down? If the monster was strong enough to flip buses and toss kitchen appliances high into the night sky, why couldn't he have broken out of a train car that was so easily damaged by just hitting a pick up truck? What ever happened to Stoner Johnny!?

I'm sure some of these questions could be answered with time and research, but, like most people, I'd really like it if the film had just explained these things directly. 

Overall, I enjoyed Super 8, but wouldn't see it again. It was an interesting and enjoyable movie, but didn't have very high re-watch value. Since not many good movies are in theaters right now, I'd recommend it, however, I don't see Super 8 making it to my DVD shelf.