movie review
Super 8
J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg score with sci-fi flick
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Listen up, filmmakers. Here’s how you make a great movie. Set it in a previous time, perhaps the time when you were a kid, so that you remember all the era-specific details and nostalgic feelings. Give it an aura of suspense, but don’t reveal the monster until three-quarters of the way through the movie.
Create tension by killing off a parent right away and creating dysfunction in the family. Set up discord between parents in different families, so that the kids have to sneak off at night to see each other. Start the movie off with a terrific train crash that spills rubble for miles and endangers kids we’ve already grown to like.
Remind us of a time when kids didn’t have computers and video games and were forced to create their own fun, like build model trains and film elaborate movies complete with costumes, make-up and “production value” settings.
‘Super 8’ has all this and more, and I was transfixed through the whole movie. I didn’t want it to end, and it ended way too soon. It’s partly because I grew up during the 70s, so it was like stepping back in time to my own childhood. I didn’t have a super 8 camera like the kids in the movie, but if I had, I’m sure I would have been out shooting a feature film starring my horse and my dog.
Which brings me to the plot. It’s the summer of 1979 and the setting is Lillian, Ohio, a small town where many of the residents work at the local steel mill. When young Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) loses his mom in a horrible accident at the mill, it sets the tone for the rest of the movie. He’s grieving, but as the months go by, he manages to pull himself together and get back to helping his buddy Charles (Riley Griffiths) shoot a feature film using a super 8 camera.
While filming a night-time scene outside of town, the boys and their buddies, including Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), witness a terrifying train crash and are nearly killed in the process. Only it was no accident. Joe notices that a truck has driven onto the tracks, causing the train to crash.
At this point, we have no idea why any of this is happening, and I’m super-geeked about that fact. I don’t think I’m giving away any spoilers by telling you there’s an alien in the movie. Director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg have been pretty tight with details, but have revealed the alien story in recent interviews. And if you watch the trailer, it’s pretty clear there’s an alien involved.
But the thing is, we don’t actually SEE the alien until much later in the movie, which is another geeky detail for me. It would have been easy for them to reveal the alien right away and have it chasing people in full view throughout the movie. But they didn’t. They chose to keep things secret and keep us guessing what this thing looks like. I won’t reveal that detail.
A third reason I’m geeked is the cast. This is the first film – or project of any kind—for both Joel Courtney and Riley Griffiths. How often does that happen? That your first big break is in a STEVEN SPIELBERG movie? It’s clear the filmmakers wanted to wow us with the story first, then introduce us to these young gems of actors. Maybe that’s why their performances ring true and grounded. They haven’t been jaded by the Hollywood Machine yet.
We know 13-year-old Elle Fanning from scores of projects like ‘Somewhere,’ ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ and ‘Reservation Road,’ not to mention the fact that she’s Dakota Fanning’s younger sister. She’s just terrific in this role, playing both a reluctant participant in the boys’ movie, as well as the daughter of a guy with alcoholic-emotional issues (Ron Eldard).
Then there’s Kyle Chandler, a nuanced actor we’ve grown to love on ‘Friday Night Lights’ – he plays Joe’s dad – and Noah Emmerich, who plays a sadistic Air Force colonel who has no problem killing off people in order to complete his mission.
And, well, you can’t get much better than Steven Spielberg as producer, Larry Fong as cinematographer (‘Watchmen,’ ‘300’ and ‘Sucker Punch’) and J.J. Abrams as writer, director and producer. I’m really glad Abrams is only 44, because he’s like a young Spielberg, who, let’s face it, isn’t getting any younger at 64. They make a great team, and I loved all the references to Spielberg’s classic films, including ‘Star Wars’ posters on Joe’s bedroom wall.
‘Super 8’ is a terrific movie and the perfect summer blockbuster. It’s like ‘E.T.,’ ‘’Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ ‘Alien,’ and ‘Stand By Me’ all rolled into one movie. Got a drive-in movie screen near you? We do, and you can bet I’ll be seeing it again under the stars with the rest of my family.
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