Super 8

All the movie reviews I write contain spoilers but this movie was a lot of fun to watch not knowing very much about it. Therefore, if you haven’t seen “Super 8”, don’t read this. I remember seeing the first preview for this movie and I got excited. It is very hard in today’s world to keep movie plots a secret but J. J. Abrams has done it before with “Cloverfield”, which he produced. I could tell before the release of “Super 8” that it was going to be an homage to the Spielberg sci-fi movies of the late 70’s and early 80’s. With Spielberg himself producing the film, I felt that the movie was going to be good. I was right. I will admit that the filmmakers were a little too enthusiastic about doing a Spielberg-type film but nonetheless, they were able to pull it off sincerely enough. The cast was great and the direction under Abrams was wonderful. The movie was intense and touching all the way to the end.

I got the opportunity to assemble the film of “Super 8” for the projector at the movie theater I work at and I never thought I would get to do that with this movie. Even as I looked at the reels at various places, I could not tell what this movie had in store. After viewing the film, I see it as a combination between “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Cloverfield”. The first few scenes establish a broken family in a small town in 1979. The main character, Joe, is a pre-teen played by an unknown actor and all this resembles “E.T.” quite a bit. Another connection to that movie is the group of friends that Joe has. The amount of overlapping dialogue they have reminds me of Mike and his friends on “E.T.”. The chemistry between Joe and his friends is probably the best aspect of the film along with the storyline of creating a film for a festival. You can tell Abrams was using elements of his own life in the script. Because this film has two story lines, Joe helping to make the Super 8 movie and the air force trying to take care of the train disaster, it is reminiscent of the story structure of “Close Encounters.” The train crash reminded me of “Cloverfield” but the Spielberg-type excitement was still there. I love how the alien was portrayed in most of the film in that you just get little visual glimpses. Halfway through watching the film, I thought that the movie was going to be a prequel to “Cloverfield” because of this depiction of the alien. You can see Abrams’ trademarks in abundance in “Super 8” such as lighting imperfections and vibrating camera shots. The depiction of 1979 is also quite realistic. I love the line about kids carrying stereos everywhere. It is very funny for an audience in today’s world. That moment however also serves the story because it sets us up to be frightened moments later. Another good part about the story is the strange events that happen in the town. Nothing seems to make sense and this is thanks to the confusion of the townspeople created in the script. The best part of Abrams’ script besides the dialogue scenes with Joe & his friends is how plot points are silently set up and then pay off later such as the store clerk wanting to date Charles’ sister. When the monster is finally revealed, I was expecting something like E.T.: odd but wise with kind eyes. Also, I don’t fully buy the fact that Joe was able to convince the alien to let go of his hate. There needed to be something earlier in the movie that, combined with Joe’s plea, would have changed the alien’s mind. Maybe I just don’t understand the power of telepathy. The very ending was a little bit of a let down and this is because we set ourselves up for a great reveal or something. With how much secrecy surrounded this movie, one could assume that there was going to be a big surprise ending like on “Planet of the Apes” or “The Sixth Sense”. I also felt that the film, in a small way, was lacking resolution. I do like how we get to see “The Case” during the end credits.

The use of unknown young actors was paramount to this film's success. I can’t believe that this is Joel Courtney’s first film. He lived an American dream by taking a vacation to Hollywood and being cast in a big movie. The best performance of “Super 8” goes to Riley Griffiths and this is his first movie also. I could understand and believe Charles’ drive to make his movie thanks to Griffiths. Other great performances were those of Ryan Lee, Noah Emmerich and Elle Fanning. AJ Michalka’s presence in the film helped set the film in 1979 for me because she was in “Secretariat”. She did a great job also. It is cool that Cooper (the alien) was played by Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood through motion capture. He was Pike on “Star Trek” by the way. This is the best movie so far of 2011. Spielberg and Abrams created an exciting thriller with heart. It may not be perfect, such as all the swearing the film has, but there are few movies that are.

4 Stars