Super 8 by writer-director J.J. Abrams gives an obvious nod toward its legendary producer Steven Spielberg and his classic direction of landmark science fiction films of the 1970's and 80's, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.. This motion picture production, with a budget of fifty million, and distributed via Paramount Pictures, earned well over two hundred and fifty million at the box office in 2011. Oh, the midas touch of the great one!
The film centers around the main character named Joe Lamb, played by Joel Courtney, a fourteen-year-old boy that lives in a fictional town called 'Lillian' in what is to be Ohio. The boy has tragically lost his mother in a horrific factory accident in the summer of 1979. Courtney
is a very likeable performer with a sweet soul that can be read immediately through his
eyes but he can at times underplay a scene due to his calm demeanor.
The feel you get out the gate is Rob Reiner's Stand By Me all the way, which is okay with me, but the over-the-top usage of the 'blue lens flare effect' employed at all times can be a bit much. It's like Abrams is trying so hard to emulate the master in every second of the film, whether
you liked it or not, that it becomes annoying to the point of distracting at moments when
the focus should be on the story. Oh boy, let's talk more about the actual story. Where as
Stand By Me was based on a classic Stephen King novel (The Body), Super 8 is not.
I found myself asking early on, "Okay. Is this really going to work?" It is hard to imagine anyone being able to truly capture 'the magic' that that the mighty early Spielberg films had. Yes, the kids casted in the movie are top notch (Dakota Fanning's sister, Elle, is a revelation here, on par with her talented sister for sure.) But the story, for me, was a bit ridiculous to believe.
Joe Lamb and his group of buddies have set out to make a Super 8 zombie horror film and during
the shoot, Joe witnesses a truck drive onto the nearby train tracks and place itself in the path of an oncoming train, which ultimately leads to an epic special effects crash that I am sure
made poppa Spielberg sit back and rub his belly with delight.
After the massive derailment, (GASP) something rips open one of the train car's doors and bolts the wreckage. Joe and his friends come upon these strange white cubes. When they approach the truck they find Dr. Woodward (an overacting Glynn Turman), who just happens to be their biology teacher, gravely injured behind the wheel of the truck. The man tells the group of youngsters to never talk about what they saw or he'd kill them and their folks. Soon after, the U.S. Air Force, led by Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich), hits the scene to secure the crash site and the kids somehow manage to flee.
The special effects during the sequence where Joe and his friends are running to avoid
the careening train and its cars is one of the most unbelievable moments I have seen in
recent film history. How they avoid being harmed when massive tons of steel catapult through
the air everywhere and major Vietnam-like explosions go off everywhere - as they perfectly dodge it all... well, that breaks the cardinal rule in good film: the willing suspension of disbelief.
Super 8 from this point on just becomes another over the top Hollywood spectacle flick.
The kids soon discover that the government imprisoned an extraterrestrial (played by Bruce Greenwood in motion capture) going by the name "Cooper", who crashed landed on Earth in 1958. Believe it or not, the alien only desired to get its ship back in working order, using the shape-shifting 'white cubes' and to get back home so he could tell everyone how pleasant humans are, but it did not and was held as a prisoner (and treated really bad) by the US Air Force. Say it ain't so!
The kids and the military encounter the alien next in a scene straight out of Jurassic Park, one of the kids barfs (yes, the fat one) after a military man was ordered to get a 'tag' on the creature only to quickly be attacked by the alien form on the bus in front of them all.
They just assume I am supposed to believe that when the kids get in a car next and navigate
the chaos like a professional driver, and again, nothing happens to them, that I am going to take
it like a good filmgoer. Nope, to be point blank... I fight back my own vomit at this point.
The creature itself is beyond laughable. It looks like a spider beast that has been designed
to terrorize, only problem is its looks and moves are even cornier than this flick.
Even more ridiculous (and a straight up rip-off of King Kong) the alien at one point lifts
Joe up, only to set him back down gently. Awe, isn't that sweet?
The conclusion has the creepy alien taking off back to space. Whew! That was a close one!!
In the end, I am afraid Super 8 is no more a classic picture than the Super 8 films I made myself
as a young boy.
