Super 8 (2011)

7/10 stars. I think the trailers for this movie were a little more exciting than the movie itself. Don't get me wrong, I liked Super 8. It just felt rushed in production. The reviews say Abrams was trying to channel Spielberg, which was pretty blatant, including several Close Encounters homages, it just didn't have all the emotional punch that Spielberg usually manages. It was flashy and fun sure, but don't go in with too high of expectations. I think the best example were the conversations among the kids. Spielberg's handling of such things always felt way natural with multiple ad libbed dialogues going on at once (think Goonies or ET). Abrams just doesn't have that same kind of handle, everything was scripted, from a pretty predictable and emotionally dry script... Still, I liked it.

Here's the misleading trailer that made it seem totally epic: