Big screen candy rarely comes sweeter than this shameless throwback to a past era of moviemaking. Directed by JJ Abrams but produced by Steven Spielberg, it’s the latter’s cinematic DNA that ends up being smattered all over Super 8.
In set up and setting, plot arc and execution, Super 8 is something of a sequel to Spielberg’s 1982 classic, ET. But you can also take that description to its logical conclusion, in that Super 8 is never quite as good as the original, or at least never quite the real deal. Setting your film in 1979 is a lot of fun, but adopting the tropes of that period automatically places a ceiling on the artistic success of the final product. Super 8 does so much so well, yet it never quite resonates as it perhaps wants to, because you essentially feel like you’re eating some delicious seconds it tastes great, but never quite as good as the first time round.
Of course, Super 8’s point of differentiation to the average big budget feature is that it has a bunch of kids in the central roles. Nobody does this better than Spielberg, and that unfortunately includes Abrams. Joe (Joel Courtney) and his buddies Charles (Riley Griffiths), Preston (Zach Mills) and Cary (Ryan Lee) are an engaging bunch, but you never quite get underneath their skin as much as you would perhaps like. Joe’s the exception to a certain extent, with the tension between him and his widowed father covered in good detail, but then he immediately gets outshone by the film’s love interest, Alice (Elle Fanning), whose own familial struggles are documented with great skill, both by filmmaker and actress.
Still, getting involved in a boy’s own adventure is just as much fun as it used to be. When Joe, Preston and Cary go guerrilla on their summer break to help Charles complete a zombie film for a local competition, any male under 50 will be powerless to resist getting swept up in the excitement. A particular sequence is causing Charles problems and the boys call upon the services of Alice, both as an actress and as a designated driver, the group making their way to a disused rail station on the outside of town and setting themselves up for a night of filming.
When he notices a speeding freight train approaching, Charles recognises the production value and orders his team into action, not realising that a pick-up truck has pulled onto the tracks just beyond the station. A horrific crash as well as a horrific amount of CGI follows, the kids lucky to escape unscathed. The driver of the pick-up, Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), survives long enough to warn them not to tell anybody anything about what they saw, and the full weight of those words are felt a few days later when Charles gets his film developed, only to find that whilst his camera was lying prone on the station platform it captured something very creepy emerging from the train wreckage.
You’d have to be a churlish grump to find too much wrong with Super 8, but as fun as this film is, it certainly could have been better. Maybe I’m alone but I tend to find JJ Abrams’ output as writer-director a little lacking in pace and timing, and Super 8 feels no different. In the second half of the film there’s precious little exposition, the film moving onto an endless series of set pieces that neuter its true climax, and Abrams’ ability to write a cohesive story and tie it to his characters is middling at best.
There’s some awful CGI too. I think a lot of punters have simply accepted the technique, but Super 8 is one to get the movement going again. The boys, in moviemaking mode, actually recreate the crash scene using Joe’s model train set, and it probably looks better then the real thing.
Besides ET, a number of Spielberg films are referenced or pastiched in some way, including The Sugarland Express, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Goonies, but Super 8 never quite matches any of those efforts. It’s self-reflexivity eventually wears down the audience, and often comes at the expense of a coherent plot.
Regardless, there are far worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon at the cinema. Super 8 engages in terms of its basic story and barely features a bum performance, despite the slew of unknowns involved. The kids, in particular, do a fantastic job. Making your tribute film so fastidiously similar in design to the originals is perhaps cheating somewhat, but the fact that JJ Abrams wants to try is in part credit enough you feel like modern filmmaking would be a poorer place without him.
I say:
Despite the hype built via its cagey marketing, Super 8 isn’t the best film you’ll see this year you’d hope not anyway but for a substantial part of its running time it entertains with effortless style.
See it for:
As a gang they may not quite be the complete package character wise, but the kids are alright!
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