*Mild Spoilers*
One thing is perfectly clear about JJ Abram’s Super 8. Elle Fanning is destined to become both a top shelf actress and a major star. Not since Drew Barrymore in E.T. (or Jenna Malone in Contact) has a young actress knocked a role out of the park. I know Fanning has been around a while (she was one of the kids in Babel, Benjamin Button and Reservation Road – prestige pics all) she is a marvel in Sophia Coppola’s Somewhere, perhaps the first picture in which she comes out from the shadow of her more callow older sister Dakota (a veteran of several Spielbergian pictures herself, although more relegated to screaming and looking cute, and less to actually acting.) Fanning’s Alice Dainard encapsulates the budding fascination of boys for girls, and impressing them by making zombie films it seems, that when director JJ Abrams yanks her abruptly out of the picture to become damsel in distress, it signals the point from when the film goes from firing on all cylinders, as a Goonies style endless summer, to being a slave to its inane and nonsensical plotting. This however, does not stop the film from being a wonderful piece of throwback filmmaking for fans of the old Amblin Entertainment imprint – the Spielberg production house which produced films about suburban kids taking/dealing with adventure, danger, and often adult issues in the form of problems, think E.T., The Goonies, Young Sherlock Holmes and Gremlins – but Abrams’ desire to amp up the scares and the body count (beyond all Amblin titles except Poltergeist) seems to peg the film more at thirty-something film nerds than the target audience of 12 year old boys. Am I being cynical about this? Maybe I should be thankful that the film is not a franchise entry, sequel or reboot, but when a film comes this close to being a great summer movie, you tend to be a bit harder on it, a bit more critical of its flaws that prevent it from getting there.
Opening with a damn near perfect image of a late 1970s steel factor reseting their “Zero Injury” bulletin board back to square 1, the film introduces Joe Lamb (young Joel Courtney) who just lost his mother to a steel “I” beam and gravity. Dad is the local sheriff, who is taking out his grief stoically while diving into his work, manhandling the town drunk, and ‘threatening’ to send Joel to baseball camp to keep him away from the influence of his goonies-esque posse who spend all their time with firecrackers, zombie make-up and the their super 8 camera. Perhaps, (ok, definitely) a sly little in-joke-slash-tribute to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg who were the two filmmakers, starting with Jaws and carrying through to Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, who did indeed bring the production quality of B-films to the A+ production standard; while ever on the hunt for ‘production value,’ chubby director Charles, pyromaniac (Data-esque) Cary, wimpy kid Preston and barf-o-rific Preston, along with Joe and Alice witness (and serendipitously capture on the eponymous filmstock) a train crash that seems to be the JJ Abrams’ dick-swinging need to up the bar from the plane crash in the Lost pilot. It is the sort of overkill which temporarily pulls one out of the film, but no matter, the train is an air-force transport and out of the wreck comes some sort of spider-like monster and a shit-tonne of all-white Rubix Cubes. Dogs go missing, car motors and microwaves are stolen, and dang if it doesn’t take three days to develop the footage (you see how digital technology, from cell phones to digital cameras kills traditional suspense in cinema?) With the military coming in and taking over the town, and something big roaming in the nearby junkyards, one wonders temporarily if the film is going to morph into Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant, but no, the film has a soft-spot for the opening act of Tremors, favouring a fair number of kill scenes, while the kids continue to make their movie and solve the mystery that many town folks think is a clandestine Russian Invasion.
Call me picky, but why didn’t the filmmakers go all the way and do things practically instead of a huge CGI beastie which looks more like a organic version of Michael Bay’s Transformers, and the junkyard complexity of his lair (temporarily replacing sparks for the ubiquitous blue lens flares peppered throughout the film) than anything else. JJ Abrams and his writing team render the kids mere witnesses to the climax of the film rather than participants. Much more effective at this sort of thing (albeit framed from the adults point of view) was Bong Joon Ho’s The Host, which is looking to be the benchmark in this sort of modern family-monster movie. Points to giving the fathers of Joe and Alice some screen time to re-connect with their kids who are in the midst of pulling a Romeo and Juliette bit of courtship amongst all the hustle and bustle of government conspiracies, close encounters and other hurly burly. It may not be subtle, but it makes for a good time at the movies, not the least of which is the wonderful easter egg of the finished Super 8 film running over the end credits. I’m all for Amblin making a comeback (selfishly, just as my own kids come into their cinematic puberty) to the multiplex, and Super 8, despite some 21st century flaws, seems like a pretty good start.
I equate this with The Expendables, I far rather see the real thing. And I don’t know what it is but a CGI creature has not worked since Jurassic Park, which probably worked because it was an integration of CGI and puppeteering AND deftly handled by Spielberg. Although Cloverfield is not bad.
In my opinion, the movie was better than I expected. Some of the leads were great, the kids for the most part. I enjoy the way Charley was making a video to get the girl. I appreciate the particular way Elle Fanning played someone who was trying to act. But I’m lukewarm on the way it ended mainly because I thought that a handful of clips with the monster was rather contrived, i.e. selective magnetic attraction towards the end, the kid with braces should have been pulled towards the tower. Now, I was way young to recall the seventies, nevertheless this movie seemed authentic enough. Needless to say, my friends and I laughed a little during the walkman scene. Thumbs up in my opinion.
My expectations got flipped around while watching this movie. I came into this movie excited for the mystery element and not so much looking forward to the childhood stuff (thinking it would be corny or sentimental). But during the movie, I was really enjoying the kids’ storyline and really bored by the forced-feeling mystery and overwrought action sequences.
The main young actors were surprisingly good (the main kid, the fat kid, and Elle Fanning) and their interactions felt pretty natural and were naturally funny, the way they fucked with each other. The friendships felt real. The zombie-movie storyline was thoroughly entertaining because the kids were smart, competent, and passionate about what they were doing. I could have watched a movie just about them making their movie and entering it in the film contest, excising the mystery and action thread completely.
Oh yeah, Kurt…that train crash was ludicrous.
From what I learned by watching Tony Scott’s Unstoppable (a movie that depicts 100% authentic train dynamics, I’m assuming), it would take a lot more than a junky pick-up truck to force a derailment of that magnitude.
From what I learned by watching Tony Scott’s Unstoppable (a movie that depicts 100% authentic train dynamics, I’m assuming), it would take a lot more than a junky pick-up truck to force a derailment of that magnitude.
Super does make me wonder how much of its early aged demographic they are cutting out (I’d bring my Kids (8 and 6) to Gremlins or E.T., but Super8 is just a bit too scary…) by targeting this movie at 30 somethings hungry for the Amblin Nostalgia, instead of the kids that don’t get these types of movies anymore.
Talked a lot of Super 8 on last night’s RotCast with Goon and Dave.
And I agree about the kids angle. Keep all that in and cut out the cliche crap with the drunken father and the overly harsh, single father. Make this a movie about the kids (which for the most part they do) – not about the struggles of the parents.
And I disagree on the train sequence. I thought it was awesome. The sound effects kicked ass in that sequence. Nitpicking that a truck couldn’t do that is missing the point of the scene. It’s simply exciting. Who cares how it happens?
Dissing the train crash = review fail
Just facetiously commenting on the absurdity of that train crash. After a couple minutes into it and cars are still flying through the air and chaos is still going down, I thought to myself “what the hell kind of a train crash is this?” Just kind of pulled me out of it for a moment, and I actually got a mental image of JJ Abrams directing this action scene. When it was finally done, I lightly laughed to myself about how the guy in the truck was still alive and Elle fanning’s car was untouched. After all that?
Yea, I felt that Super 8 needlessly over does things when it doesn’t have to. I feel that way about JJ Abrams in general. Overkill can be entertainment, but not in his films.
There’s entertainment and then there’s art. The former is for the masses, the latter for the small minority. Long live art…in all it’s glorious forms. One day, God willing we will say ‘art is for the masses and entertainment is for the banal’. Then we can celebrate. We can take champagne corks and pop them and watch them rocket towards the sky. People will say ‘now that is art’ and the purile simpletons will be entertained, smile and run into the fields looking for the corks. The rest of us will drink champagne.
Wow, I completely disagree Curious. I love my art films, but I fully expect to be entertained as well. Of course it’s always a personal thing and if you only love “art” films, that’s totally your prerogative. Me? I love going to see Crank or [rec.] or Battle for L.A. or Super 8 or Men in Black or 28 Weeks Later or Shinobi or John Carpenter’s Vampires or Indiana Jones or Airplane! or Shaun of the Dead or Death Proof or Beastmaster or Blackhawk Down or Back to the Future or Snatch or Terminator 2 or Face/Off or 3000 Miles to Graceland or Starship Troopers or The A-Team or Desperado or…
Well, anyway… enjoy your Manderlay or Koyaanisqatsi.
Ms. Curious, where lies Big Trouble In Little China? (Great trash often equals art in my book)
Art and entertainment aren’t mutually exclusive.
I will say this, Abrams tries hard and is not particularly subtle, but most of the time whatever he is involved in works despite these shortcomings. My problem with Super 8 is that it is actually too safe and faithful to Spielberg, the Abrams I like would amp things up, the mysteries would matter, but here it feels like the mysteries were cut out, and the point became aspire to be The Goonies but even the Goonies had something awesome to involve the characters in, it wasn’t stalled like Super 8 feels. I agree with Andrew that the movie is the kids, they were great, they just felt underused by the story.
Ms Curious, your statement is a joke. I can’t believe people on this site actually engage in conversation with you. No offence.
Hey, now, don’t be bashing Koyaanisqatsi. (Or Manderlay, I guess, though I haven’t seen it yet.) Art vs. entertainment is simply a false dichotomy at worst and a mostly useless distinction at best. It’s sometimes useful as a descriptor of style or sensibility, but rarely of worth.
No I like Koyaanisqatsi. But if that’s the only type of film (or what’s the one that’s all static shots of garbage dumps and factory assembly lines and such?) I ever watched… kill me now.
Don’t be dissin’ Koyaanisqatsi there Andrew…I love those images combined with Glass’ music (he sure does write a catchy tune, don’t he?
). That and Powaqqatsi and Baraka are terrific films and, at least for me, do a great job of mixing gorgeous imagery with interesting ideas. I still haven’t seen Tree Of Life yet, but I get the feeling it may actually be sort of like those movies…I’m a sucker for imagery that works in tandem with music.
“I’m a sucker for imagery that works in tandem with music”
Then Tree of Life is your sweet spot. The music, my God, the music.
Ha! That’s funny, both Jandy and I were gunning for you Andrew…
I actually didn’t like Powaqqatsi that much. You’re on your own defending that one, Bob. :p And yes, you will love Tree of Life – it’s like Koyaanisqatsi with a modicum of dialogue. Heh.
Just being a little picky but the father was looking to send the son to baseball camp to free the father up from the responsibility of having to deal with a kid while he (the father) was grieving and getting used to not having the mom around anymore. This was foreshadowed by the comments of Riley’s parents at the wake wondering if the father was going to be able to be a single parent.
I’m a little older than you kids, much past the 30-yo ‘target audience’ you’ve speculated this movie was shot for; nevertheless I enjoyed this flick, mostly for the ’70′s nostalgia.
The train wreck reminds me of that spectacular event in The Fugitive. The CGI creature sums up nicely as ET with an attitude.
What was unfortunately overbearing was the portrayal of ‘Evil GOVERNMENT!’ supposedly taking over the town, Red Dawn by the ‘good guys’? Give me a break; that fellow who wrecked the train wasn’t even given medical care before he was waterboarded. What a joke that was.
Still, Super8 was worth the $7 bucks and change, to give Steven Spielberg another boost. Better than that Harvey Potshards series finally ending this weekend I’ll warrant.
From a David Thompson piece on Abrams & Spielberg:
“I intend some doubt and caution in that, but above all I would warn Abrams of trying to be too like Spielberg, when Spielberg seems ready to go on and on. Jeffrey Jacobs Abrams is 46, and he’s an established success in American television, where he created, wrote and directed the hit series Alias and Lost. On the large screen, he has directed Mission: Impossible III (2006), Star Trek (2009) and Super 8, in which you can feel the inherited enthusiasm of a good deal of early Spielberg, but not the sublime, unhindered appetite for enormous metaphor that marked such modern myths as Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind – it never picked up the breeze of Spielberg’s confidence. Truth to tell, as a natural tribute to the master, Super 8 is a picture Spielberg might have made himself in the late 70s and turned into an emphatic hit.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jul/28/jj-abrams-david-thomson
I agree, they are different… I still like a lot what Abrams does outside of Spielberg’s shadow. I am also finding myself more interested in television than movies, and Abrams has contributed to that shift.