I haven’t seen many movies in the last year. It’s partially a busy life and partially that there’s not too much out there that interests me. But this weekend, I got to see a couple science fiction movies that intereste me, one from this year and one from last year. So, we’ll start off with Super 8. I generally enjoy JJ Abrams movies (and even some of his TV shows), so I was looking forward to Super 8. I can’t say that I was disappointed, because I did enjoy it, but it wasn’t quite as good as I was expecting. Let’s continue on and see why.

Joe’s mom just died in her job at the steel mill. His dad is a deputy sheriff and not exactly a kid person, so everyone’s a little worried about him. But Joe has his hobbies. He likes to assemble and paint models and he does the special effects make up for the super 8 zombie movie his buddy Charles is shooting. As summer starts, Joe’s Dad wants to send Joe to a baseball camp, but Joe insists on staying in town to shoot the movie with his friends. Then Charles announces that he’s rewritten the movie again to add in a wife for the main character and he’s asked Alice Dainard to play the wife.

Alice’s Dad and Joe’s Dad aren’t big fans of each other and Alice is a worried about the deputy’s son being on the shoot, mainly because she’s driving her dad’s car without permission and she doesn’t have a license. But the real fun starts when they are shooting a scene by the old train station. Charles rushes them to shoot because a train is coming down the line and it would make for great production values. Joe is holding the boom mike during the scene when he notices a white truck jump onto the train track and head towards the train. Before they can shout “cut” there is a giant train explosion. I mean the engine must have had a load of firecrackers in it from the way it exploded. And out plot is off and running as the Air Force comes in to clean up in a load secretive way. Everyone knows something is strange as electronics and car engines and people start disappearing.

There is a monster on the loose and the movie is still being shot and Joe starts having feelings for Alice and both their Dads go crazy about it and we know there is going to be a huge blowup at some point. A friend asked me what I thought of the movie and I told him that it was a low-rent E.T. with a scarier monster. This is the best comparison I could think of. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the movie, since I really did. But I enjoyed it in a forget about it the next day sort of enjoyment, not a have to go see it again and buy the DVD sort of way. If you were to tell me that I would never see Super 8 again, I wouldn’t be that upset. It was a good movie, but it just didn’t grab me. It was well done, but easily forgettable. I would encourage people to see it, but don’t count on it being a classic.