Super 8

I had been planning to see my next movie on a Wednesday night, but I just couldn't pull the trigger with the selections from Memorial Day Weekend - they didn't hold a real interest for me.  Even the new X-men movie barely made a blip on my radar.  Although, I have heard both X-Men: First Class and Kung Fu Panda 2 are actually pretty good films.  If I had tons of money, I might have been more willing to take a chance on one or both of those films, but since I, like so many people these days, am not a gazillionaire, I try and choose wisely what I spend thirty dollars to go see in a theater.   This is the week I have been waiting for all year - a movie worth my shelling out the equivalent of half a tank of gas for is finally upon us.

Super 8 will open this Thursday Night/ Friday Morning and you can bet that I will be there in line, even if the NBA finals are still going on.  But hopefully they will finish before I make the short trip to my local theater to check out this summer blockbuster.

The buzz around this movie is weird.  Anyone who knows me has heard me talk about the awesome potential of this film for months, but I get a mixed reaction from others.  Most people see it as I do: A throwback to Spielberg of the 70s and 80s.  Which, in my book of hit and miss assessments, is a great thing. But there are others who don't see it that way, and I can understand their concerns. An over-18 crowd might not be interested because of the age of the lead actors.  They may assume it is only a children's movie.  And child actors can be hit or miss as far as performances, too.  Spielberg has a knack for getting great performances out of his young actors, but he is not directing this.  This is JJ's first real crack at directing a film that relies so heavily on youngsters.  The fact that people have been held in suspense about the creature, much like Cloverfield, could also get under their collective craw.  A frustration with the trailers and not knowing what they are going to see, much like the town folk who repeatedly ran when the boy cried wolf, might dissuade a percentage of people from the theaters.

I think the producers are right not to show the creature until they have to.  Industrial Light and Magic is doing the effects after all, so naysayers can rest assured that the creature won't suck.  Many trailers for films these days show so much of the film that you know what happens before even going to the theater.  That is not entirely the case with this movie. We know there is a train wreck as kids are filming a super 8 movie, and that chaos breaks out afterwards as the creature escapes.  But we don't know what the creature looks like, its motivations or history.  It worked for Spielberg with Jaws.  And it has me counting down the hours till 12:01 Friday morning to see this movie.

-aap