Super 8

Super 8 from producer Steven Spielberg and director J J Abrams is a mildly entertaining, too familiar retro summer sci fi entry that has some nice special effects and good work from a mostly young talented cast including Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning as 2 youngsters who play at amateur filmmaking and in the process discover a strange phenomenon that threatens to destroy their small town.

You can pass on Super 8. I'm surprised at the number of 3 and a half star reviews I'm seeing. How can they say the film is approaching excellence? Spielberg plays it too safe for me. Why make a replica of your past successes when we can just watch ET? How about changing the formula and surprising us?  It's a good looking film but I think you'll get the same deja vu feeling I did.