Thots and Expressions..

Super 8 October 18, 2011

It was just another one of those Friday evenings when you are confronted with Life ‘s epic dramas. What to do? Where to go? Which movie to see ?

A search on BookMyShow (That’s the only Movie booking site not blocked in my Office) provided 2 options – “Real Steel” and “Super 8”. An IMDB’s rating of 7.4 and the star power of Steven Spielberg clinched the choice for us. “Super 8” it was!

Now coming to the movie:

Have you ever spent the whole 90 minutes of a movie wondering what the title was all about?. This time I did. Somehow the story didn’t make it very clear and throughout the show, we kept counting for 8 things which would make a Super 8. Missing the first 2 minutes in the start made all the difference, I assume. 😐

Anyways, the whole movie seemed to be a manifestation of Steven Spielberg’s fixation with aliens, and JJ Abrahams’ with cameras (I guess!). It’s like two geniuses put their heads together. Spielberg said “Aliens”. Abrahams nodded ..” Cameras”.. And Whoaaa..We have a movie!!..But unlike Spielberg’s masterpieces of the past, the result here turned out neither very unique nor believable. So it sadly failed to sweep you off your feet.

Set in the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio the story revolves around the lives of 6 kids amidst glimpses of suburban life , parental melodrama and teenage wisecracks.

The beginning set a good tempo for the action to follow. Fast paced, building up tension towards a cinematic climax that simple falls PLOP on the face!

While watching the movie, I somehow had the eerie feeling that the treatment was so Cloverfield like. The invisible unseen alien monster, the camera angles and shooting as a major theme in the story, the characters’ reactions when they realize that their friend Alice(Elle Fanning) has been abducted by the god-knows-what creature stalking the town. It was a Cloverfield “Deja vu”!..

The story leaves many unfinished threads, and as it progresses, becomes lesser and lesser believable . It is almost like once the hidden-for-suspense alien is revealed, the director has set auto-complete on. The audience is simply expected to put two and two together, letting the alien happily fly off back to space. And it’s a happy ending (and lots of question marks) for everyone left behind.

Americans who were kids in 80s and 90s might watch it with a twinge of nostalgia. And it could be a treat for an alien obsessed ET adoring crowd.

But we were disappointed.. 😦

And somehow, the biggest let-down was the IMDB rating. Something between 5 and 6 would have worked just fine.