Super 8

      Going to see Super 8 was an audible call in the first place. I was going to see the latest forgettable chapter of the X-Men series, which I always enjoy but never absorb. I had a vague impression of Super 8 as an alien or monster film from a trailer a couple of months ago. Aliens and monsters aren’t really my bag, but I went on Metacritic to see if I could be talked into it, on account of J.J. Abrams (I’m a recovering Lost nerd). All the critics spoke of homage to early Steven Spielberg (who helped produce the film) and other films of that era, but the many seemed to speak well of it.
      Super 8 takes place in an Ohio steel-mill town in the late 70s. Our protagonist, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), recently lost her mother to an industrial accident, and thereafter struggles to connect with his father, a deputy sheriff (Kyle Chandler, or Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights). That summer, Joe and his friends are absorbed making a zombie movie for a local Super 8 film festival. Charles (Riley Griffiths), the director and Joe’s best friend, asks Alice (Elle Fanning, sister of Dakota) to play the romantic lead.
      One night, while clandestinely filming a scene at the town’s old train station, one of the Air Force’s trains wrecks in spectacular fashion. They all survive, but receive an ominous warning from their science teacher, who caused the wreck, to keep quiet about it. The rest of the story unfolds as the group struggles to complete their film, Joe and Alice struggle to connect, and the town deals with the Air Force’s unusual investigation to the whole affair.
      The trailer wasn’t misleading in that the film does have an alien (freed during the crash), but it’s not a movie about aliens. Despite half-hearted narrative attempts to the contrary, the alien itself come across as an object more than a person. But as the young auteur Charles explains when questioned what Alice adds to his movie, you have to make the audience care what happens to the characters.
      I was invested in the lives of the kids (not only Joe and Alice, but also Charles and even young pyromaniac Cary, played with aplomb by Ryan Lee) due to superb acting and smart economy of characterization. Admittedly, Courtney is helped by having an open, sincere face like the one that helped Patrick Fugit carry Almost Famous a decade ago, but I digress. One of the most fun and fulfilling moments of Super 8 was when the exiting audience froze to watch “The Case” (the kids’ zombie flick) play alongside the credits.
      There are other little touches that made me smile, like Michael Giacchino’s purposefully antiquated score, or how the kids named their zombie adversary Romero Chemical in honor of legendary zombie master George Romero, because it’s the kind of things kids would do. Certainly, one of the most fun and fulfilling moments of Super 8 is when “The Case” (the group’s zombie flick) flickers alongside the credits to the actual movie.
      As to the aforementioned charge that this film is pure early-Spielberg, I must admit I was only mildly cognizant such characteristics to begin with (for example, I’ve never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind and haven’t seen E.T. since I was eight or so). I will say that if you’re as ignorant as I am about it, Super 8 won’t fail any comparison tests to such films, but won’t win any unearned affection for this, either.
      Here’s what hamstrings the movie just a bit for me, though. And I believe this is somewhat indicative of those Spielberg and (Rob Reiner, et al.) films. The characters are supposed to be the strength, but often their circumstances have too much artifice to make them feel fully resonant, but rather idealized. For instance, it feels a little obvious (if affecting) way to use Joe’s choice about whether to hold on to his mother’s necklace to comment upon the movie’s themes. His plea to the alien also feels a little on-the-nose. And when his dad and Alice’s dad bury the hatchet on a long-standing feud, it borders on glib.
      Anyway, despite these complaints, I liked the film a lot. I’d pick Super 8 over an X-Men feature any day of the week, and certainly over most of the crap in theatres during summer. And I’m encouraged by Abrams’ first crack at directing original source material (indeed, it’s his own). But Super 8 just isn’t quite the classic it seems to aspire to be. “Your mileage may vary”, as it’s said, based on your penchant for summer nostalgia, stomach for saccharine sincerity, and ability to suppress cynicism.
      Super 8 is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence and some drug use.