Super 8

Recently i have been trying to go the cinema more as i feel i am not looking at whats about in the moving image industry properly so on Sunday i went to watch the new Sci-Fi/Thriller 'Super 8' written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. Here is a short synopsis of the story without giving too much away - The film tells the story of a group of children in 1979 who are filming their own Super 8 movie when a train derails, releasing a dangerous presence into their town. Before i went to watch the movie i wanted to quickly find out what a 'Super 8' movie was and this is what i found out - 'Super 8 mm film (often simply called Super 8) is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "regular" 8mm home movie format.'
So after that was cleared up i headed over to Stockport Cinema to watch the movie, i had seen the trailer for the film while watching Harry Potter 7 part 2 a few weeks ago and i thought it looked rather exciting and very different to anything else that is out at the moment.
The film started of fairly slowly following the separate lives of the main characters and one boys obsession with making a Zombie horror movie and one night while filming at a train station they notice a train about to go past and for 'production value' plan to film one of the scenes with the train going past so they frantically get all the equipment ready to make sure they catch it on film. But during the filming a truck drives onto the train track causing the train to derail all the characters frantically scramble about trying not to get hit by the falling train parts leaving the camera obviously still rolling capturing the whole thing. In this particular scene when the train derails the CGI is absolutely fantastic and full of action, the crash lasts for quite sometime throwing its parts all over the station but one thing i have to say was the sounds were almost unbearable, i understand that the cinema is loud but i almost had to cover my ears from the high pitched squeaking that seemed to come from every sound effect and this happened all trough out the film. However this was probably intended may be to connote that unearthly, enigma of the 4th kind?
Throughout the film the creature that was causing havoc in the small town is kept a mystery you just see a slight blur/outline of it until near to the very end which adds the element of thriller to the movie which was great because it kept you constantly thinking 'what does this thing look like? what is it doing?' so you stay engaged with the movie rather than revealing the character at the very beginning.
I have been looking at the importance of stories within film, advertising and in everyday life for my dissertation so i have been paying more attention to this while watching films, adverts, animation ect...and the storyline within this film is that similar to E.T but less family friendly, the creature is more aggressive but shares the dilemma of returning home as E.T. It is basically a more modern twist of the heart warming family tale taking inspiration from the films the general public are enjoying within our popular culture at the moment which is the added action scene and possibly some violence but still that familiar heartwarming feeling is shared at the end of this film but i won't give it away!