Super 8

This morning I saw Super 8, starring Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning.

Joe (Courtney) is the son of the town deputy—an only child who lost his mother earlier in the year to a workplace accident. Alice (Fanning) is a girl from school who has a father who is always in trouble and a mother who has abandoned them. The two kids are, of course, destined to be together.

Their mutual friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) is making a film and they are both helping. As they become each other's certain first loves, they find themselves entangled in the aftermath of a local train crash, which has epic consequences.

You see, a creature of some sort (probably of the alien variety) has emerged from the crash and begun to wreak havoc on the entire town, apparently stealing dogs, people and copper. And let's just say each time "it" arrives, it "makes an entrance."

In the fashion of classic Spielberg hits like E.T. and The Goonies, the kids know more than the adults and are therefore tasked with saving the day.

Really, that was all fine with me.

Predictable as it was (and toward the end I was practically mouthing lines, though I'd never seen Super 8 before today), it was still incredibly enjoyable to watch a film set in the 70s that actually felt like the real 70s.

I loved seeing a dish on the table at one of the family's homes that was in my home as a kid, and I couldn't help but smile at the nod to the "new invention" of the Walkman.

I'm glad to see in our world of 3D, CGI, bigger-is-better film mentality that the studios are still willing to green light the occasional coming-of-age caper.

This one doesn't disappoint.

~~~