SUPER 8 thoughts!

I saw SUPER 8 tonight at a promotional screening with free popcorn, free soda, A FREE HAT and two of my favoritest movie geek friends. This was my most anticipated movie of the year and I had a great time. How was the movie? I posted some brief non-spoilery thoughts elsewhere, and I figure I'll post them here too.



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Things I love about SUPER 8:

The kids are awesome.

Elle Fanning is especially awesome.

The SUPER 8 theme and the rest of the score was great.

The end credits are pretty genius.

Glynn Turman is back in a very similar to GREMLINS type role. (he's on that poster!)



Other Stuff:

After the train crash things slow down a bunch and things get aimless. There is a lot of JURASSIC PARK and a lot of CLOVERFIELD and E.T. going on, but the difference here is that those movies created genuine tension and you never knew when a character might meet their end and this never really has those moments. They try but I was too distracted (or bored) because I've seen all those moments before. The movie is at it's best when the awesome kids characters are together or Elle Fanning and the main kid are with each other. I wish these characters were dropped into a situation that was more interesting. The army stuff and the creature mystery was just sort of blah, and a lot of the middle is dedicated to it.

It sort of reminds me of WAR OF THE WORLDS, how it sets up all this family stuff and how much the kids resent their Tom Cruise dad. I was actually sort of interested in all that and then boring aliens appear and the focus goes to stuff that isn't as interesting. But we do get a bit of closure to it all in this one, which is one up on WORLDS. When the movie is good, it's great. Probably the most disappointing thing was...


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---the monster is actually General Grievous from REVENGE OF THE SITH. There was so little to be said about this monster, that it's sort of surprising how much of the story revolves around it. I think if J.J. got his usual writers on this, they could have done a better job killing the preamble on the creature that doesn't amount to much and focus more on the kids and their movie. He probably shouldn't write on his own. I did like the moment where the kid lets the necklace go, even though it's not quite earned. I gotta go with that when hero kid was grabbed by the alien that he was being told to move on through the alien, and not the other way around. Although both ways don't amount to much sense.






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The bottom line is I enjoyed it, and it's worth a watch. I was way too excited for this movie though. I mean I was given a free hat and everything.