"You know Mrs. Maloney?"
"From fourth grade?"
"Yeah. Act like her only hungry for flesh."
Just got back from seeing Super 8. It's Father's Day tomorrow so I took Da out to see it as his gift this year. He said that he wanted to, so I obliged.
The movie was okay. Not the best, not the worst, just okay. It had an average plot but the trailer was kinda misleading. I know, I know, trailers always lie, but it was kinda annoying.
I got from the trailer that the death had happened to someone in Charles's family, not Joe's ("I have to finish Charles's movie.") I am glad, at least, I didn't have to deal with lots and lots of blood and guts. Psychological horror I am fine with; not so much with the bleeding out of every orifice. The bit from the kids' movie where the zombie vomits blood was almost at my limit.
The monster was well designed. I am glad the Abrams, once again, did not use most basic hominin body designs. It was hexapedal and it looked like it could actually be subterranean with the shovel feet. Props to Neville Page for an awesome design. I was expecting a cute version of Clover, but Page made sure that some of Clover's body shape was changed. The leg articulation was different and there was no balloon air sacs on the head, just some sort of chitinous faceplate. It kinda looked like General Grievous.
The plot was the basic invasion of the other, only with Aliens! in Ohio! in the seventies! with child protagonists! Again, not the best, not the worst. But Abrams had to shove in a love story. Why could he have not left it out? The movie would have done fine without it. I already felt for the characters and could understand if they wanted to go back for Alyse as friends. But no; summer blockbuster means that there MUST be a love story. Humph.
I guess the reason I did not enjoy it as much as I could have is because I used to do the same thing as the protagonists. I used to spend time with some of my friends making monster movies. They were bad. Very bad. The only one I can clearly remember was the one where I played a dead chick. Well, one of the ones where I played the dead chick. This one, I had two lines: "Hey, I'll go get a flashlight" and "Arrrggghhh *crunch*" Yeah, I was totally destined for an Oscar or something back then.
Donald, who owned the camera we used, is now an assistant director for one of the rotating auxiliary units at a major studio, I think. I am not sure. But he is on IMDB. And one of his shorts, "The Eagle and The Pit" made it into the Military Channel's GI Film Festival. He also gave me one of my favorite birthday presents: a copy of all five Frankenstein movies from the 30's on DVD. I still watch them.
Super 8 was, removing my bias, a good summer flick. Lots of explosions, lots of screaming, good special effects and a love story shoved in. It's a solid B-.
