Review: Super 8

JJ Abrams has crafted a stellar piece of cinema with Super 8. (Trailer) To summarize loosely, it is about a group of kids making a movie over the summer. By virtue of filming next to a train as it wrecks, they become involved in a complex fabric of the Air Force, their fathers, and a town going it pieces through unexplained events.
That is a lousy summary. But only because this movie is so good I am choosing to not spoil any parts. As most of you know, the Super 8 part of the title is in reference to the film the children are using, and it is a wonderfully continuous component of the story. I am to young to have ever used a Super 8 film myself, but I know from seeing old videos that they do have a charm of their own.
A quiet and square charm, but a charm nonetheless.

In a summer movie season full of the sound and the fireworks of American (and now outsourced) special effects, Super 8 rings in with a deeply human story. Told through the eyes of a handful of children, it takes a firm hold on your attention and your  heart and refuses to let go. Abrams spins complex weave of mystery and learning, despair and delight, anticipation with the unexpected. Every character in the film was a real person, to the point where I often forgot I was watching actors on a screen. Remarkable, and a testament to Abram's skill as a director that a movie can be carried so well by such an array of young actors.

It is a wonderful movie. 7/10