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I was only mildly disappointed in Super 8 and not for the same reasons as you were. I struggle to remember any “long and drawn out scenes that went nowhere.” I thought everything was expertly paced and suspenseful. I did feel for the kids in the movie and thought their characters, aided by swell to competent performances, were very well flushed out and realistic. The visual storytelling was all fantastic and it is a showcase in how to seamlessly use CGI to it’s full capabilities without being showy or distracting. There were three or four really exciting set pieces and Abrams did a great job of not showing his hand too early.
That being said, the problems I had were in the script. I won’t go into detail because the marketing has been top notch along side the director in not giving away too much like most movies of this type do. But, be fair warned, it is difficult to dance around mild spoilers, though I will contain them as best I can. If you want to experience this exciting, recommended film fresh and on your own, stop reading and come back later.
Firstly, the conceit of the story never gave a reason for the main characters to be the center of the universe. They literally stumbled into EVERYTHING that ended up happening to them. As a result, I did not feel an attempt to recreate either The Goonies or E.T., as those kids actually were the creators of their own destiny. It was a mishmash of early Spielberg for sure, but not distractingly so. I felt more of a Close Encounters vibe. To be honest, I also really found absolutely no reason for the film to be set in 1979, other than to be kitschy. There was one pretty good Sony Walkman joke and the one plot point of taking three days to develop the film, which could have easily been tweaked otherwise.
The main group of kids were constantly reunited with other characters for no apparent reason (much like Kirk’s first encounter with Spock Prime in Abrams’s most recent film, except over and over again like that). And I could not figure out why the military was never able to discover what they were looking for. It’s disappointing because all of the wild coincidences and incidents of varied effectiveness could have easily been handled by fleshing out a plot point (the one about “telepathy”) that was brought up and seemed important, but never fully developed.
A more tightly woven script would have elevated this from very good to great, but I still highly recommend it based on it’s expert storytelling. A lot of critics are praising this film for the feeling of “nostalgia” it gives them, but I did not feel that at all. I actually enjoyed it a lot, but for reasons I was not expecting. The “old school” vibe I got was due to the sense of mystery and wonder built up by not showing too much. I am already expecting huge disappointment in next week’s Green Lantern, based on the most recent series of “look at me!”,”look at how awesomely epic this is!” series of trailers.
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