The kids and I went to our local drive-in to see Super 8 over the weekend. Knowing it was about an alien and a train wreck, the tracks that run beside the drive-in's property line added to the ambiance.
I'll admit I went in with gigantic expectations for this one after reading some of the reviews. We're talking Steven Spielberg, after all, and a movie set in an era I grew up in (Side note: the soundtrack was money).
To say I was disappointed is too harsh because the storyline about the kids making a movie to enter into a local film festival I found very entertaining. There were a couple of terrific performances by young actors I'd never seen before (Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney) and the special effects were also phenomenal.
But unlike Stand By Me, one of my all-time favorites about a group of kids the same age as those in Super 8, I didn't care what happened to anyone by the end of the movie, including the alien. I couldn't have told you one character's name after the credits rolled (Another side note: make sure to stay for the credits because the kids' movie they were filming throughout is played in its entirety).
It's as if the editors axed all the character development scenes and left them on the cutting room floor.
This was Raiders Of The Lost Ark meets E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial meets Transformers and I didn't really connect with any of it.
Now, if you asked my kids for a review, they would say they loved it. There was no “down time” and it kept their attention throughout. But with the price of movies, I wish I would have waited for the DVD.
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