I'm late reviewing Super 8, so I have little time left to convince you to go see the best film of the summer before it departs our multiplexes... but if you're one of those people who believes "they don't make 'em like they used to when I was a kid" and you were a kid back in the 1980s, you really are missing a treat.
JJ Abrams has recaptured the spirit of movies like The Goonies, Back To The Future, ET and Gremlins in this heartwarming monster movie that, yes, may veer ever so slightly off the tracks into schmaltz (particularly with its 'Our Two Dads' subplot) but ends up no worse for that. Because, you know what? Those films we love from the 80s came with a fair slice of schmaltz too... but they also made you care. And I cared about this film more than I have any other movie of the summer.
Watching Super 8, I yearned for my youth. Abrams could easily have told this story in the present day, but it wouldn't have had half as much charm. I live a big chunk of my life on the internet, yet still I found myself longing for simpler days when the most complex bit of tech in a teenager's bedroom was a handheld Pac Man, when kids made models and played vinyl records and argued with their siblings over what to watch on the only TV in the house. Rose-tinted nostalgia? Perhaps... I do remember the first time I saw Back To The Future back in 1985 thinking how much better it would have been to grow up in the 50s with Marty McFly's parents... Hollywood only ever reminds us of the good times in movies like this... but is that really such a bad thing?
I couldn't help but sympathise with the Sheriff Pruitt when he told a youth with a clunky cassette Walkman... "kids walking round with their own stereos is the last thing we need - it's a slippery slope!"
