Thought by many to be the movie of the summer, Super 8 really fails to perform! I’m no professional movie critic, nor am I an avid movie goer, but when I get up the gusto to actually go out and spend my hard earned money to see a movie I expect to be satisfied. After watching Super 8, it was like eating a 5 course meal, but still wanting to run to McDonald’s afterwards. This movie built up a lot of hype in the past year. All of the movies I have seen in the past several months, Super 8’s trailer has played and it peaked my interest, in particular with the clever way they concealed exactly the infamous creature. That alone made want to see this film. Let me preface this review by letting you know a few things about me.
#1 – I DO NOT like scary movies, in fact I can not watch Michael Jackson’s Thriller video in the day or night.
#2 – Aliens are creepy and I hate that creepy railroad steam engine brake sound they use in all alien monster movies.
And #3 – I’m a sucker for a good plot – and with J.J. Abrams at the helm and Steven Speilberg producing, what more can you ask, right?
Wrong! Super 8 is one of those movies where everything seems to be in order, there’s a storyline, a brief backstory, boy meets girl, a coming of age story, a climax and then – THE END CREDITS! Yeah, exactly! I was like “what the heck!”. First things first, the so called “creature” ravishing the town, was not scary at all, and again this comes from the guy who can’t watch America’s most gentle Popstar in theatrical makeup. The creature kinda resembled an arachnid hybrid scorpion with arms. Even the close-up's of the face had me like “hmm, you kinda look like a venus fly trap with eyes, I wonder if you’re scarier when you growl” and the answer, no he actually wasn’t.
As for the actual story, well it’s very simple and to the point. Many years ago an alien creature crash landed on Earth, he has the ability to use his special cubes that can shape shift his craft into anything he wants it to be. Well evidently while the creature was unstable he was captured by the government and his cubes confiscated, so he is unable to escape and go back home. One of the scientists who works for the government agency becomes a rouge, because the creature uses his telepathic link to tell him he just wants to go home. However, the government wants to test and torture the creature for its own schemes – [side note, why is this always the case? Why is it that the American government is always depicted as ruthless, unfeeling and subjective? But, anyway!]
Over time the scientist becomes a rouge and tries to free the creature, which in turn gets him banned and discharged from the government. Fast forward many year later, the scientist is still trying to help the creature, so when he finds out the creature is being transported via train, he decides to cause a train wreck to free the animal. Now from here there is a lot of details I could reveal, but I neither have the time or desire, and I’m sure you could care less. The point is, the creature is now freed from captivity. So one would think, “yay – creature 1 / government 0”. Wrong yet again children!
So the creature is still just trying to make it back home, so he’s stealing all the electrical energy sources from the small town where the train wrecks. All of this in anticipation he can finally make his ship and go back home. At one point he does have all his cubes back, he has his electrical energy stored up, so creature why won’t you just go home? Especially since it doesn’t like how humans are so overbearing and ruthless. That question I can’t answer, the story as to why was never clearly developed either. So what was the final catalyst for E.T., I mean the creature to go home? A little boy who found the rouge scientists research tapes, who by the way was also his science teacher, finally communicates to him and tells him to go home because that’s what the scientist was trying to help him to do!
And so in a climax of 90 seconds, the creature forms his ship and leaves – and then, and then, and THEN the moment I will never forget!!! The end credits! …really, is it over? Am I being punk’d? Where’s Ashton you guys?! So then we the audience is like oh something must be about to happen in the credits, and again, wrong, the end credits just shows the completed student film the kids in the movie were making right before they found out about the creature, which has nothing to do with the creature or storyline at all. So after 2 hours of twists, turns, back story, climax and the now the anti-climatic ending! I am feeling a little post-partum – I do not love my baby and I want it to go away! That is all!
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