Super 8 (2011)

I don't trust Spielberg anymore, so when his name was heavily attached to Super 8, I didn't even want to watch it.  However, JJ Abrams directed, and after the Star Trek reboot, he's got a lot of credit with us.  So we warily put it on the netflix queue, and finally watched it.  


==spoilers==


It opens with a beautifully simple bit of storytelling, showing us a sign outside an area of heavy industry that proudly proclaims no accidents in ~740 days.  Then an employee starts to take down the numbers.  We cut to a boy sitting alone on a swingset on a snow-covered yard, while the wake is being held inside the house.  The muted conversation between two adults reveals it's his mother who has died.


This is great.  We're hooked.  We're ready for more.


Four months later, school lets out, and the boy is helping his friend, an aspiring filmmaker, complete his entry for a competition.  The group of kids are well-developed caricatures.  All is good (especially Elle Fanning, who is playing a 15-year-old while 12 herself).  While they're out shooting a scene by a train station at night, a truck purposefully drives onto the tracks and crashes into a passing train, which derails.  And derails.  And derails, so unbelievably ridiculously spectacularly that it derails all enjoyment of the film for a couple minutes, but eventually we get back to the kids, who now have a mystery on their hands... but mostly they're still just trying to shoot their Super 8 film for the contest.  


With Spielberg's name attached to the film, you'll never have guessed this, but... there was an alien in the train.  Unlike E.T., the gubbamint got to this one first, and they held it captive and did tests on it and generally pissed it off for 20 years, but now it's escaped and running loose in the American Heartland.  Also unlike E.T., it captures innocent bystanders and eats them, at least until "our hero" shares his memory of his mom dying to let it know that "Bad things happen... but you can still live."  Mmm-kay, thanks, but I don't see how that suddenly turns Alien into E.T.  I'm certainly not going to be staring up in wonder as it leaves, like this is Close Encounters or something.  


The whole last 30-40 minutes is a mess, really.  I assume the filmmakers want the alien to be a misunderstood monster, like Kong, or Mighty Joe Young, or Frankenstein, but there's no time to get to know this creature on a personal level, so it's impossible to sympathize with it, beyond a general sorrow that it's been held captive for so long.


As the credits roll, we see the film the kids made... and sadly, it's ultimately more satisfying than Super 8.  Boo.  I'd rather have had the Star Trek sequel sooner.  Honestly, this was the worst film we've seen since we Green Lantern hit the top of our queue last week (that was far worse).