Reviewing Movies

Some may call these spoilers but I wish I’d had this information before I watched the movie.

There’s a sense of something semi-autobiographical going on in a film by J.J. Abrams produced by Steven Spielberg that involves kids with a super 8 camera making a movie but this is hardly a movie for children. In the first place there are several movies taking place at once here. First there’s the amateur movie the kids are making finally shown over the closing credits which the cretins who charge out immediately as the credits start rolling forcing theatres to raise the houselights would miss completely. There’s the back-story of Joe’s mother killed in an industrial accident when a steel girder crushes her. There’s Joe being raised by a distant self-contained single father who also happens to be deputy-sheriff of the small city played by Kyle Chandler. There’s a wacky family across the street with the pudgy kid who’s the movie maker. There’s the film making in which Joe plays make-up artist and props. There’s the kid obsessed with blowing things up. There’s the neighbourhood mad scientist who teaches middle school and uses his truck to derail a train. There’s the train derailment that occurs while the kids are filming, a rather spectacular special effects-laden pile-up. There’s the air force clean-up operation and cover-up which ends in a scenery-chewing forced evacuation.  Oh, and did I mention the alien? If you can sort through all this in one viewing you do better than I.