Super 8(2011)
Directed By J. J. Abrams
Directed By J. J. Abrams
The zombie film the kids were making before the train blew up had more going for it than anything that actually happens in "Super 8".
"Mars Attacks" is retro sci-fi at full throttle, this film is a nostalgia trip for fans of classic Steven Spielberg films. 
"You've gotta put that scene in, so that later on the audience cares who get's eaten" a young director says to his crew, a lame brained excuse for the useless funeral prologue, melancholy lead and his forced star-crossed puppy wuv. 
When we finally see what all the fuss is about it's a beast with a tediously predictable origin (like something a unimaginative ten year old would come up with) and even worse it looks exactly like the beast from Cloverfield, just smaller and less intimidating.
No effort seems to have gone into designing an original looking monster at all, which if there is a bare minimum I want out of a monster movie its just that.
I enjoyed most of "Lost", "Fringe", and liked "Cloverfield", but "Star Trek" was awful and this even worse. 
The kids were lame except for the little pyro, the camaraderie and chemistry of kid team-ups like "Monster Squad", "The Goonies", and to a lesser extent Robert Rodriguez's wonky but still unique, "Spy Kids" series, is absent here, and the dead parent drama that is supposed to connect all the dramatic plots together, rings hollow and cloying like the even flatter and blander "Monsters".
The train sequence is the only portion of the film that approaches genuine spectacle, the rest is just non-threatening and often barely palpable suspense. 
If you've forgotten what a good monster movie for the whole family can be re-watch "The Host".
Not to mention the great giant-fighting mockumentaries "Troll Hunter" and "Big Man Japan". 
The hype machine behind "Cloverfield" when all was said and done seemed appropriate, while in "Super 8" the mystery is a let down, because it's basically "Cloverfield" with some hallmark card and completely unearned "E.T." sentimentality, that doesn't promote the humanism (of the film's it apes) so much as justify the cynicism that leads audiences to "Rampage" and "The Human Centipede" to get their thrills.
"X-Men: First Class" and especially the surprising "Attack The Block" were retro, youthful, relevant, dramatic, had unique action set pieces, and didn't need to explain to us why we are supposed to be care about a character, it made us feel it. 
Compare the openings sequences of these three films, and its easy to see why Super 8 goes so wrong. 
Its restrained tone of domestic does not sharpen or highlight the domestic drama its just hopelessly anchored by it.
I was hoping the jolly fat kid would have been the lead, his crush on the lead actress could have been cute and offered opportunities for much needed lightness. 
Instead with the mop topped sad kid she gets to emote about dark secrets and second hand guilt. What an adventure. 
I never thought I would say this but Micheal Bay would have made this a film worth seeing, it might not be good, but it would at least be worth seeing.
"Super 8" is not worth seeing. 
directed by J.J Abrams
Like the last man in line at a gang bang, you know all the good stuff has long been had, but you've already been waiting in line so long, you might as well take the plunge. That's what watching this 11th Star Trek is like, it boldly goes where everyone has been before.
It's starts off way to fast, before we know who anyone is, they are exploding. Then we are introduced to them, in basically a montage of bar fights, bullies, and hot green girls in their underwear. Then things go astray, and it's not like the Star Trek we remembered. 
Spock is in charge. And Kirk is kicked off the ship. Then and cover your eyes for spoilers hereafter: Lenord Nimoy shows up as future Spock, saying the worlds been turned awry because of a Supernova, and now they occupy an alternate universe. But not so alternate that things can't come back together to resemble the team and universe we are comfortable with. But which one is that again? Who are the Federation? Romulan? Vulcan? Anyone?
For an origin film its not very interested in conveying any sense of a universe. I never really watched Star Trek, I have vague childhood recollections of some movie where they travel in time to save whales in San Francisco, and another of that guy from Reading Rainbow who had the Cyclops glasses, but I know the basic story, enough to fill in a few, I was with, who had no idea. But this film gave them no chance of point of entry, into understanding where we were, otherwise. 
The actors were all decent mimicking their earlier or I guess alternate universe incarnations, Bana looked like Nimoy, Simon Pegg was funny, etc. I guess I was expecting more suspenseful, exotic alien landscapes; "Lost" but in space, and I got "Mission Impossible 3" in the future. 
This is the franchise's 11th film, with only 7 years since the last one. Instead laying new ground this slightly tweaks the old, and then makes the plot about how the whole universe is a slight tweak of the old. A remake film, about a remake universe. But aside from the characters saying that, you wouldn't notice, by the end, it looks like the remake we would have expected, with the whole classic team assembled. Like rearranging the furniture for a few minutes, and then deciding you liked it better the first way. 
So by the end no harm no foul, right. Nothing really amounted to anything. The bad guy wasn't really bad just misguided, but dead regardless. No unique imagery developed here, just more of the old show retro designs(which I actually enjoyed, especially the green girl), and other sf movies like "Star Wars", with it's Snow Planet and creatures. 
I had high hopes for this, cus I think it's a concept with a lot of potential, just none of it was here. Too bad. 
