J.J. Abrams has made a successful career out of sci-fi and suspense, slating such works as the TV series “Lost” and 2009’s hit “Star Trek,” but in his latest venture, “Super 8,” he pays homage to mentor and producer Steven Spielberg and creates a very memorable and exciting hybrid of “E.T.” and “Cloverfield.” The line between the two very different types of films, however, occasionally has a hard time meshing throughout the 112 minute runtime.
Set in the fictional small town of Lillian, Ohio (supposedly near Dayton) in the summer of 1979, the movie's story revolves around young teens shooting a zombie movie on Super 8 film. Yet the director, Charles (Riley Griffiths) is not the lead protagonist; the film centers on his best friend Joe Lamb (a very talented Joel Courtney), who lost his mother in a mill accident four months prior and his father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a deputy sheriff who himself is having a difficult time dealing with the loss.
Jackson wishes to send Joe away to baseball camp for the summer, but his son is insistent on staying to follow through with the commitment he gave to Charles and help him finish his film so he can send it to a Cleveland festival. Charles enlists the help of Alice (Elle Fanning) because she has access to a car and can drive, even though she clearly isn’t of age or has a license.
The gang sneaks to the train depot on the outskirts of town in the middle of the night to shoot a scene when a train starts to bellow through, priming a key theme to both the movie and this review: “production value.” As the scene wraps, a pick-up plows head-on into the train, derailing it in such graphic, explosive and amazing detail, it preludes to how the pacing will resemble a fantastic roller coaster for the remainder of the show.
The damage-dealing truck is driven by the school science teacher, who amazingly is not dead, and warns the children that if they speak of this, they and their families will suffer. But as odd things begin to take place around Lillian, starting with the disappearance of not only appliances and car engines, but dogs and people, including the town’s sheriff, as well as a heavy military presence, Jackson begins to dig into the meaning of it all.
In “Super 8,” production value, as mentioned earlier, is not just a throw away term, but a thought process heavily developed by Abrams, as the whole film looks amazing (outside of the overbearing and unnecessary lens flares), from the integrated CGI to the set design and coloring. The only way that Abrams could have made this look any more like the late 1970s would be to use old-school special effects (which, thank goodness, he did not) and shoot it with cameras and film stock from that era.
Another aspect that worked to a “T” was the script, which Abrams also penned. Very few times does the dialogue feel campy or unreal (even though sometimes the action sequences embellished the fictional aspect). The kids speak like they do at that age, using coarse language and attempting to be more grown-up than they actually are, and it works on many levels of humor and drama.
And the drama is something that ties the whole film together. As much as it a sci-fi film and an honorary Spielberg piece, there are the messages of grief, loss, life, love and friendship using the science fiction based narrative to drive it home, especially during the climax. This is where Abrams really begins to shine as a filmmaker and not just the master of the visceral that he has already shown himself to be.
And while most of the elements in the movie work, it’s that use of the alien story that hurts "Super 8" as a whole (though not horribly), because unlike “E.T.,” it just never gels as both a coming of age tale and as science fiction. It just can’t define itself as one, the other, or both due to how it bounces back and forth between the dramatic scenes of Alice and Joe, the comedic bits involving the film crew and the suspenseful scenes of the town’s dealing with the military and alien attacks.
And while that may hamper “Super 8” slightly, ultimately it is something very easy to overlook, thanks in part to the great, young and relatively unknown cast. Courtney and Fanning have great chemistry and Chandler’s performance never feels like he’s going through the motions, something that happens all too often in this type of film. The rest of the gang, played by Griffiths, Zach Mills, Ryan Lee (his pyromaniac character Cary offers some of the best comic relief) and Gabriel Basso, who has seen success on the Showtime dramedy “The Big C,” are all solid.
In a world that is overcome with big-budgeted summer blockbusters that induce more headaches than true emotions, J.J. Abrams has shown that it is possible to make something that not only feeds the hunger for high action, suspense and thrills, but also connects with the audience to their core and makes them remember how great a blockbuster can really be.
DIRECTOR: J. J. Abrams SCREENWRITER: J.J. Abrams PRODUCERS: Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk CAST: Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka, Kyle Chandler RUN TIME: 112 minutes MPAA RATING: PG-13
