Super 8 review
Age rating: 12A
time : 1 hour 51 minutes
Director: J.J Abrams
Cast: Joe Lamb, Joel Courtney, Jack Lamb, Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka, Kyle Chandler, Riley Griffinths
Release date 5/08/2011
time : 1 hour 51 minutes
Director: J.J Abrams
Cast: Joe Lamb, Joel Courtney, Jack Lamb, Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka, Kyle Chandler, Riley Griffinths
Release date 5/08/2011
1970 set up with kids running around with a camera recording a movie who suddenly view something unexpected, what could it be? That’s right it’s your typical bad and ugly looking alien. However this isn’t like you’re every other Si-fi movie; it is a Spielberg Si-fi movie.
After creating his own brand of “Si-fi movies” and many successful years of directing/writing great movies such as E.t and Close encounters of the Third King, Steven Spielberg this time decided to take a back seat in the creative aspect and let director J.J Abrams captain the creative end.
The 2 time Emmy award winning director of Lost finally decided to try his hand in Si-fi movies.
And what better way to start then with paying homage to the classic Si-fi Spielberg movies.
The Si-fi thriller, Super 8 has the correct elements in it for it to be a perfect Homage to Spielberg. Set in the late 70’s, Super 8 Follows a group of school friends who are secretly making a zombie movie for the local film festival, but they accidently capture footage of a major train crash while shooting at the station late one night, later something from the wrecked train escapes causing havoc and destruction and pretty much later you have the army and everyone running around town trying to capture what escapes. Which later the plot goes all “E.T” on us.
Referring to its title the old film format used by enthusiastic home movie creators in the late 70’s, this nostalgic movie gives us the memories of Spielberg’s great hits. Just like Spielberg’s critically/commercially acclaimed movies like the Goonies or Gremlins, Super 8 has that tale of the youth and friendship; not only do the children have the great Sci-fi adventure to solve but they also have a lot of emotional issues everything from death of parent to young love.
The main reason Super 8 has this emotional attachment with the audience is because of their child cast. The three protagonists that stand the most is Riley Griffinths (Charlie) the crazy and excited director of the home movie, we then have Joel Courtney (Joe) the make-up genius in the gang who has his cop father and mothers death to deal with. And finally Elle fanning the school beauty that has her own domestic troubles. This young child cast helps the audience to connect with the film more as we can somehow understand what they are going through it also helps the film to stay grounded even when the plot occasionally shows a slight view of cheesiness.
Credits also to Michael Giacchino for presenting such dramatic and heart-warming background music. The non-diegetic music gives you the correct feeling for each scene as for an emotional scene you can feel the piano playing in the background showing us the emotion oozing out of the scene. Or when the something is going to happen we can hear the silence and a sudden boom to make us jump out of our seats to give us the feeling of the scene.
it’s a good old fashioned entertainer giving us the nostalgic feeling of a Spielberg movie. The nifty special effects and gimmicks sometimes do get the better of the slow moving plot. I’m going with 3/5 for super 8 don’t miss it if you are a fan of a good old Spielberg movie, and make sure to stay till end there is a clever surprise!
After creating his own brand of “Si-fi movies” and many successful years of directing/writing great movies such as E.t and Close encounters of the Third King, Steven Spielberg this time decided to take a back seat in the creative aspect and let director J.J Abrams captain the creative end.
The 2 time Emmy award winning director of Lost finally decided to try his hand in Si-fi movies.
And what better way to start then with paying homage to the classic Si-fi Spielberg movies.
The Si-fi thriller, Super 8 has the correct elements in it for it to be a perfect Homage to Spielberg. Set in the late 70’s, Super 8 Follows a group of school friends who are secretly making a zombie movie for the local film festival, but they accidently capture footage of a major train crash while shooting at the station late one night, later something from the wrecked train escapes causing havoc and destruction and pretty much later you have the army and everyone running around town trying to capture what escapes. Which later the plot goes all “E.T” on us.
Referring to its title the old film format used by enthusiastic home movie creators in the late 70’s, this nostalgic movie gives us the memories of Spielberg’s great hits. Just like Spielberg’s critically/commercially acclaimed movies like the Goonies or Gremlins, Super 8 has that tale of the youth and friendship; not only do the children have the great Sci-fi adventure to solve but they also have a lot of emotional issues everything from death of parent to young love.
The main reason Super 8 has this emotional attachment with the audience is because of their child cast. The three protagonists that stand the most is Riley Griffinths (Charlie) the crazy and excited director of the home movie, we then have Joel Courtney (Joe) the make-up genius in the gang who has his cop father and mothers death to deal with. And finally Elle fanning the school beauty that has her own domestic troubles. This young child cast helps the audience to connect with the film more as we can somehow understand what they are going through it also helps the film to stay grounded even when the plot occasionally shows a slight view of cheesiness.
Credits also to Michael Giacchino for presenting such dramatic and heart-warming background music. The non-diegetic music gives you the correct feeling for each scene as for an emotional scene you can feel the piano playing in the background showing us the emotion oozing out of the scene. Or when the something is going to happen we can hear the silence and a sudden boom to make us jump out of our seats to give us the feeling of the scene.
it’s a good old fashioned entertainer giving us the nostalgic feeling of a Spielberg movie. The nifty special effects and gimmicks sometimes do get the better of the slow moving plot. I’m going with 3/5 for super 8 don’t miss it if you are a fan of a good old Spielberg movie, and make sure to stay till end there is a clever surprise!
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