Super 8

Not the motel chain. My cousin, my brother, his friend and I went to see Super 8 last week. My cousin was apprehensive, not wanting to spend full-price on a movie, preferring to go to the cheap theater and watch Rio. We talked him out of it through democracy. Sorry dude, 3 to 1 means we're going to a good movie. Fortunately for our budget-conscious cousin the new theater by the mall was sold out, and the old Wynsong down the road wasn't. I've disliked the Wynsong, in the past driving an extra 10 miles to another mall until the new one opened, but not wanting to see an animated movie about birds in Brazil, the old theater had to make do. With student IDs tickets were only 6 bucks. Well worth the price for the movie we got to experience.

Are you sick of action sequences ala Michael Bay's Transformers that don't make sense, and don't matter because you could care less about the characters? How about dialogue that does nothing more than serve as trailer clips to get people in the theater? Yeah, me too. And the summer movies are the worst. You get hyped up CGI'd 3D eyecandy and you're bored halfway through the opening scene. Super 8 is a tribute to how movies used to be - Good. There's plenty of mystery, action, and adventure, but you actually care about the characters. Remember how much you loved all the Goonies? You'll feel the same way about these kids in the town of Lilian. And like every good heist movie, these goonies have their own explosives expert. He's the kid you grew up with who was always setting fire to things and modifying his fireworks with duct tape. Maybe you were that kid. You probably got a lot of your friends in trouble with your fascination with firepower.

I don't want to spoil the movie, because not knowing much about it is what makes it so great. I'll just say it takes all the good elements from Goonies (kids who curse, and work with a determination despite their parents' wishes) and replaces the cheesiness with scary and mysterious action. A huge train crash, followed by strange occurrences, violence, and general weirdness. And the government is probably trying to cover it up. Or something. The Air Force is there, and they're being vague. Go watch it. You'll smile and remember that summer movies aren't all bad.