Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney and Riley Griffiths are total scene-stealers in Super 8. Here's hoping whoever plays their parents in future films are just as dumb and neglectful as the ones found in this film. That way they can steal more scenes!There are two movies to be found in Super 8. One, is a loving homage to the building blocks of movies that generation-X and Y’ers held dear to them pre-adolescence. The other is a summer blockbuster that is unabashedly illogical and powerfully hokey. Director and writer J. J. Abrams, has done well with Super 8, in one regard. Setting a movie in a non-descript Ohio locale with unique child actors was a move that suits his style. Balancing this children’s science fictional realm, while keeping the supposed adults entertained is where the movie fails. See Super 8, but avert your eyes when the movie turns into a shameful rendition of Independence Day.
Full disclosure: I’m a bit harsher on films that use Ohio as it’s setting. My homestate is usually prey to jokes referencing its citizens as hill people, yokels and other country terms that are probably more than apt.
There is a lot of film technique to take note of in Super 8. Dizzying crane shots and around-the-corner approaches are very reminiscent of how Hitchcock kept the audience on edge of their seats. All this good is found prior to the alien reveal.Much like the gaudy soundtrack of Abrams’ Star Trek, we get it, he’s familiar with the time period that anyone who’s reading this, grew up in. There are warm browns and yellows found in cars and middle-school children’s wardrobes. Why did it always seem like it was Autumn when reflecting on my elementary school days?
The cast revolves around outsiders and wallflowers. All the archetypes are there. The kid who likes playing with fire. The fat one. The pizza face kid suffering from a lanky growth spurt . Let us not forget the kid who will obviously be the hero and get the girl, that was so unattainable nearing the beginning of their journey. And yes, they just happen to be the most adorable children you’ve ever seen.
Up until this point in the film, Kyle Chandler plays a completely earnest role as Joe's father. The brilliant decisions he makes, both acting and in character, make him less believible as an absentee father.Having like-minded friends [around this time] was paramount if you hope to survive a strict household and a less-than-stellar reputation at school. Joe and Riley embody this relationship perfectly. Their endearing little fights and quibbles about their Super 8 film pull the viewer away from the serious aspects covered. Joe plays a makeup artist and a child suffering from a great loss. A loss which is handled with great care at the start of the film, but almost-literally destroyed by a tank by the end.
There are tropes abound in Super 8. Some are good and work contextually. There is a mysterious creature set loose in this small town that is snatching up kids, adults and the occasional appliance. For some reason this specific group of kids, making their Romero-esque zombie film, seem to be the smartest minds on Earth. Or maybe the adults in Lillian, Ohio were all dropped off in this town on multiple short buses. Be that as it may, the movie takes quite the turn.
In this scene, two embattled parents reunite with their missing children. Then they watch a short commercial on how important recycling is to space ships.When given the chance to make a heartfelt movie on a marginally-large sized budget, there is usually going to be a big chance that the movie will have to placate to the masses. This cast and Abrams, captured those granular moments a typical child experiences, and mixed it with our very typical imaginations of that time. Then, someone played Call of Duty and ruined the end.
Someone watched the last few years of blockbuster films and played the last few years of popular video games, and wrote the last twenty-minutes of Super 8. That person was J. J. Abrams. Every major character that isn’t a child is so glaringly idiotic that the trope of the ‘absentee parent’ falls so far from plausible; It makes me want to physically hurt someone over forty. How can Joe’s dad be such an amazing deputy, but so piss-poor of a father? Oh wait, he’s written as an absentee fa … that’s it I’m done.
"Dude, what happened to that heartfelt-script?"
"Oh no, I think it got crushed by that tank!"
Tanks arrived in Lillian, Ohio to finish Abrams film, Super Cloverfield. Where the audience is supposed to vie for an alien that is both completely computer generated, and unlikable. Up until this point, the alien was a mystery. Seldom shown and gave our little child-like imaginations something to fear, yet simultaneously want to know more about. An Area 51 side story is tacked with hopes of some emotional connection to an alien, that seems very capable of being self-sufficient. Then when the eventual reveal is a let down, we just want the movie to rap up as fast as possible. Luckily it does just that. Abrams then films his rendition of Platoon above ground and Goonies below.
See Super 8. Really, there is good in this film, but keep in mind it’s a Summer blockbuster made in this current era -- where having a budget, usually bodes worse for the film's many good intentions.
I Give Super 8 …
