Super 8

I am one of those shameless Lost devotees who never missed an episode and I am also a Spielberg cinephile so when JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg decided to join forces you can imagine the tingling sensation I got all over.  With the cryptic advertising campaign and the build up to Super 8 only heightening my expectations it was with great trepidation that I went to go see Super 8.  I say trepidation as I didnt want to go expecting a masterpiece and come out disappointed, I am still licking my wounds after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (not that I ever thought it would be a masterpiece but bloody hell it could have tried a bit harder).  Anyway, lights go down, the kid on the bike goes past the moon, the bad robot races around the screen and so starts Super 8, with an ominous Accidnet Free Zone sign being changed to read 1 day accident free.  Would Super 8 be everything I hoped it would be...

 

Joe Lamb is a 12-year old boy living in a sleepy Ohio town, mourning the recent death of his mother.  While helping his friends make a Super 8 zombie movie they inadvertently film a catastrophic train derailment.  Soon things start to go haywire around town and the military move in as people and things start disappearing mysteriously.  As Joe and his friend Charles develop their footage they realise that their little town is in great danger.

Right, first things first, Super 8 is a type of film that has not been made, or at least made well, in a very long time as it is a blockbuster with a lot of heart. Like the films it takes inspiration from, namely ET, The Goonies and Stand By Me, this film is all about a group of pre-teen kids that are trying to come to terms with love and life and letting go. It is so refreshing to see a summer blockbuster where the special effects largely take the back seat and it is this that makes Super 8 a powerful little film.  Even though it is a big budget Hollywood film it has all the feel and vibe of an independent film as so much time is spent on the little things, the small details and the intricate relationships between the bunch of kids and what makes them tick.  Like The Goonies and the Explorers and ET, this film is only concerned with the kids.  The adults take a backseat, all except Kyle Chandler who plays Joe's dad Jackson.  Like Spielberg before him, Abram focuses on the father/son dynamic, the fear a recently widowed father has of a son he doesnt really understand and the heartache a child has by not being able to speak to his father.  This delicate balance is handled so well but so simply it makes you wonder why it isnt done this well in other films.  Another of the really well judged elements of Super 8 was the decision to set it in the 70's.  It settled on an era before technology really took hold.  There were no computers, no mobile phones, no video cameras.  The world was changing, America was only coming to terms with the consequences of Vietnam and the sacrafice a generation of young men made, of an innocence lost.  Super 8 adopts the 1970's feel so well that would be forgiven for thinking that it was made in the 1970's and again this is truly wonderful as films made in the 1970's and the 1980's couldnt rely on special effects like films of today can.  Those magical coming of age adventure films of 25 years ago had to rely on character and emotion and not a computer generated nasty to titilate the audience but not engage them. Again, a triumph of decision making.

Like Spielberg with Jaws, Abrams decides to keep the audience fed with bare glimpses of the monster, with sounds and shadows and it is such a good move for, as the film builds, you palpably fear what the hell this beast is that these kids are going to have to fight.  Unfortunately the build up doesnt get the pay off it deserves in the final act as Abrams probably spent too much effort building the monster for the audience.  There is also a very jarring tonal shift as the final third of the film unfolds but Abrams builds it like a little mini film in itself so it doesnt feel wrong, it just feels like a step to the side instead of a step forward.

There is very little ordinary about this film but there is also very little truly original about it as well, everything you see in it you have seen somewhere else in a lot of films from the 1980's especially.  It is exceptionally well acted considering its young cast, Joel Courtney as Joe brings an innocence and a heartbreak to the character of Joe that really pulls in the audience and Ryan Lee, the train-tracked explosive obsessed best friend injects a lot of fun into the darker moments of the film.  Yes, the darker moments.  One of the problems that Abrams finds hard to correct is the tone of the film as it nears its conclusion for, while Super 8 charms the audience it also holds no fear it actually frightening you.  This in itself is not a bad thing but so much time is spent with the kids and setting them up and getting to love them that the darker moments can jar the viewer. This is only a minor quibble though as Super 8 is a really wonderful and refreshing film that may just make you fall back in love with the cinema.

To answer my question at the start, would this be everything I hoped it would be?  Yes it surely was.  This film is the perfect antidote to the summer FX overload, sweet, tender and dark in places but magical and magnificent in many ways.  While it builds a little too slowly, paying a bit too much homage to the films that inspired it, Super 8 becomes it's own film and Abrams gives us everything that the man who created the conundrum Lost could give us, plenty to think about but not enough answers unfortunately.  It is a small issue though as the film itself is pure enjoyment and the unexplained why's of the film will not be too much of a an annoyance as you leave the cinema.

8/10