Super 8 (2011)

A ‘mint’ mind-blowing sci-fi adventure.

Before I watched the film, I expected it to be Sci-Fi, because of the producer (Steven Spielberg) being known for doing quite a lot of sci-fi films. I knew it would be good because it was produced by Spielberg and Directed and Wrote by J.J Abrams.

The story bases around 6 14 year olds in 1972, who decide to film a zombie movie called ‘The Case.’ Whilst filming the movie for a film festival, a truck drives onto a railway track and crashes into a train. Evan though, the teenagers have nothing to do with it, they are wrapped up inside the secrets and mystery.

The main character, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) recently lost his mother and now lives with his father, Officer Lamb (Kyle Chandler). Joe’s friends each are involved with the zombie movie as well. Charles (Riley Griffiths) is a controlling, persuasive best friend, along with sarcastic, pyromaniac Cary (Ryan Lee), smart, neurotic Preston (Zach Mills) and bright, impatient Martin (Gabriel Basso). When Charles invites popular, funny Alice Dainer (Elle Fanning) to play the part of the wife, Joe and Charles find themselves trying to get attention.

The special effects for the explosions throughout the film are incredible. During the train crash, you don’t know where to look with the burning parts of the train flying and crushing the station and the constant screams as the teenagers run. Also, towards the end, when the kids try to find Alice and then ‘thing’ (Spoiler) destroying anything in its way to keep people from taking it down.

Now my favourite film, Super 8 checked all the right boxes. Being from sad, to funny, to action, it’s like an emotional rollercoaster! Another good point was that each character had a good personality and they weren’t all just typical ‘normal’ boys. You had a smart one and then you had this pyromaniac who thinks the idea of the explosions when the train crashed were ‘mint’.

Scenes that I enjoyed were small, comedy parts like the scene where the boys are waiting for Alice to arrive and they start singing ‘My Sharona’ and then Joe throws a twizzler at Martin. ‘The Diner Scene’ was also a favourite, because you had a few different conversations and while they were working out things about the crash, you had comedy and the boys skitting each other. They were memorable because it makes teens think ‘Oh I’ve done similar to that’ and then remember the time when maybe they’ve sat on the pavement sing a random song or throwing a twizzler at a friend, it’s possible?

I would recommend this film to children over 12 because there a few swear words and parents probably wouldn’t want their children listening to that. I would recommend you watch this suspence-filled, unpredictable film though. I can’t really compare it to anything because it’s completely unique and I have never heard of another film like it. It’s not really a typical sci-fi film either and there aren’t many films that have a similar story line to that either.