Super 8: Not Another Superhero Movie
Super 8 is set in the late seventies and follows a group of middle-schoolers who plan to spend their summer shooting a movie for a local festival. One of the kids, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), who provides lighting and make-up for the production and is the main focus of the story, recently lost his mother in an accident and is emotionally disconnected from his Deputy Sheriff father (Kyle Chandler).
One late night, while the kids are filming at a local train station, a pick-up truck crashes into a passing train, causing it to derail in an amazing series of explosions. Something escapes from one of the cars. The military rush to the scene while the kids bolt in fear. Soon after, dogs, appliances, auto engines, and people begin to go missing and a lot of lights flicker on and off.
To say much more about the plot of Super 8 would rob you of some of the film’s sense of discovery, which is exactly what director J. J. Abrams holds dear. The film is the combination of two ideas swimming around in J. J.’s head and the result of a collaboration between him and producer Steven Spielberg. It is a film about kids of a certain age for movie lovers of a certain time, with assistance from one of the brilliant visionaries who created the kind of film Super 8 pays tribute – those films like E.T., The Goonies, and Stand By Me about kids who are sucked into an adventure while also dealing with family issues and crushes.
It’s a film that successfully balances relationships and character beats with jump scares and thrilling action sequences. The trailers for the film (which are brilliant) make the story seem to primarily be about the mystery behind what’s in the train. That actually serves as a subplot. The real story – and the real draw, actually – is of these amateur filmmakers, particularly Joe, who silently grieves over the sudden loss of his mother while also crushing on Alice (Elle Fanning), the production’s reluctant (and only) actress.
For those of you who may have skipped last winter’s inert film Somewhere, this will be Fanning’s star-making role. Elle, kid sister to Dakota, is given some of the most demanding scenes of all the kids and is spectacular in them. So great is Elle in Super 8 that she comes dangerously close to giving Dakota (who has recently been stuck in either mediocrity or the Twilight franchise) a run for her money. Not only is she likeable in an unconventional way, but she has some powerful acting chops. At the risk of building expectations too high for those who have yet to see Super 8, I will declare Elle is as good a reason to see the film as Abrams’ filmmaking.
As for the filmmaking, this is the first effort by Abrams that isn’t a part of a franchise (he directed Mission: Impossible III and 2009’s Star Trek reboot). As such, it is a strong one. The jump scares are unpredictable. The action and explosions are jaw-dropping. Yet, this is a film that is more interested in relationships and its time period than being a creature feature. That is not to say the creature is glazed over – it certainly gets its time. However, Super 8 is more focused on the love of filmmaking during a time when you needed models for effects and real locations for principle photography, when computers didn’t do all the work for you (wouldn’t it be great then if the monster were practical rather than CGI?). The film also shows a love of seventies sci-fi films (particularly Spielberg’s) and those eighties films about kids with family issues who go on an adventure of some kind. For audiences old enough to recognize this,
Super 8 is quite effective. Michael Giacchino’s score also helps, which evokes the wonder and excitement of such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. As a result, it’s up there with the scores from X-Men: First Class, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Hanna as the best of the year so far.
What should also not go unnoticed about Super 8 is how refreshing it is. This is one of the year’s first legitimately good films that isn’t part of a franchise, a remake, or based on a book. It’s just a story, told by two guys who love movies. That is reason enough to support it.
Yet, Super 8 falls far short of the mind-blowing spectacle one might expect, given the talent behind the scenes. For all the film’s interest in relationships, it fails to deliver on a key rivalry between Chandler’s Deputy Lamb and Alice’s drunken single father, played by Ron Eldard (TV’s Men Behaving Badly). It’s clear that their grudge has something to do with the death of Lamb’s wife; what isn’t clear is how or why they’d both keep their kids – Joe and Alice, who just started liking each other – away from each other. One expects this plot point to clear up by the end, but it only fizzles in an unsatisfying moment alone in a truck. Being as what was so essential and handled so well by the films Super 8 is nostalgic over were the family issues, it is a letdown that Abrams failed to sell it in his film.
Super 8 is not the staggering spectacle one might expect from the combined talent of Abrams and Spielberg. It certainly fails to land the emotional beats as well as it wants to, leaving one slightly underwhelmed in the end. But it is far from disappointing. It is a film that will appeal to many: film buffs, genre fans, those who grew up in the seventies and eighties, and fans of those eighties films about kids and admired their ability to cope with whatever challenges they’re faced with, be it kidnapping thieves, aliens, or a death in the family. But mostly, Super 8 will appeal to anyone who simply enjoys a well-made movie.
7/10
Should you see it? Buy tickets
Super 8 is now in theaters.