Super 8

Spoiler warning: so I don't plan to spoil the entire film, but some people have very low spoiler thresholds. If you don't want to know anything, don't read further.

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I caught a matinee of Super 8 yesterday.

A bit of a disclaimer first: I love J.J. Abrams' stuff. I loved "Lost" (until its un-spectacular final season), "Alias" (okay, maybe the first half of "Alias"), Cloverfield, and the rebooted Star Trek.

I'm also absolutely devoted to "Fringe".

So when I found out Abrams had a new movie out, I decided I'd see it knowing absolutely nothing about it. I read snippets here and there as the film came closer to release, but never really had a clear idea what I was going to see, save that it was set in 1979.

The protagonist is a boy who has a disconnect with his father (a common Abrams theme, really... makes me wonder what his deal is, but never mind that...). The boy and his friends are filming a zombie movie, which allows the story to introduce the various Goonies-style characters that are the gang of kids.

While filming a scene at night, the kids witness a train wreak. And then the crazy stuff starts to happen.

Yes, there was an alien on that train. And the alien is pissed at the Air Force.

Cue the crazy stuff: disappearances, half-seen monsters, sinister government troops, conspiracies, and all that fun plot development.

The alien is pretty damn scary-awesome. The story goes in a few interesting directions.

The ending is fairly satisfying, given Abrams' main weakness is his inability to end his stories well. It's my not-so-secret hope that Abrams has now learned how to do endings and "Fringe" won't have the same kind of crappy finale that "Lost" and "Alias" suffered from.

Oh, but I digress.

Super 8 was an homage to all those classic films from the late '70's and most of the '80's, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and The Goonies but with a more 21st-century feel to things.

It's not a kids' film, though. I personally think the alien would traumatize most younger kids. Teens would probably love it.