Super 8
*** out of ****
Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee and Kyle Chandler
Running time: 112 minutes
In the year 1979, a 13-year-old middle-schooler named Jeffrey Jacob Abrams started making films with a Super 8 camera in his backyard. The young director, working alongside good pal Matt Reeves (the future director of Cloverfield), submited his works into local film festivals. Reeves and Abrams were even hired by a certain high-profile director to restore some of the amateur films that he had made in his younger days. That director’s name was Steven Spielberg.
Fast forward 32 years and J.J. Abrams, now one of sci-fi geekdom’s most idolized creative minds, harkens back to the 1979 that he envisions his Super 8 camera would have picked up had Spielberg’s cinematic powers transcended through the device. It is a time where every kid lives in cozy, small-town suburbia, races their bicycle through the street, communicates through walkie talkie, quotes Star Wars at a whim, and bops their head to The Knack’s “My Sharona.”
This is the self-conscious although blissfully nostalgic environment that Abrams creates in his latest film, an exhilarating and moving pastiche to his filmmaking hero entitled Super 8. The sci-fi adventure operates from the perspectives of six young teens during a summer in the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio.
The clan are amateur filmmakers working on a five-minute zombie film—itself a tribute to director George A. Romero—that they plan on entering into a regional student film festival.
The gang includes perfectionist director Charles (a pitch-perfect Riley Griffiths), tall leading man Martin (Gabriel Basso), brace-faced explosives expert Cary (Ryan Lee), alluring actress extraordinaire Alice (Elle Fanning), and our protagonist, makeup artist and model maker Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney, whose celebrity will hopefully last longer than Henry Thomas's did).
While the pubescent group are shooting a nighttime scene at a railway outside of town, an unexpected train derailment halts the filming and the teens flee for their lives. But they are unprepared for the crash's aftermath, as several mysterious events start occurring around Lilian, including disappearing dogs, vanished power lines and an abducted sheriff. It is now up to Joe’s stern father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), also serving as the town’s deputy sheriff, to investigate the dangerous presence in town.
Super 8 allows J.J. Abrams the opportunity to unleash his inner Spielberg, giving him the chance to show all he learned about storytelling from watching and re-watching E.T., The Goonies and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As the film lets on, he’s learned a lot from his movie-making hero, but he still has some storytelling skills that need sharpening.
The finest thing Abrams gleaned from Spielberg was his affection for working with young actors. Just like how the auteur pulled great work from Drew Barrymore and Christian Bale at their budding prime, Abrams shows the same confidence with child performers. He writes very believable 13-year-old boys, even ones whose interests lie more in girls on film than girls in general.
The interactions by the young ensemble, all uniformly terrific, never feel rote, and these young actors—mainly newcomers outside of Fanning—create an endearing impression by balancing their kid-at-heart sentiments with a more mature frame of mind. The chemistry between the kids works wonderfully, especially the innocent romance between Joe and Alice. To borrow a term often used by the ambitious director played by Riley Griffiths, the young cast is “mint.”
The second thing Abrams masters are the Spielbergian techniques of creating suspense, dread and excitement. Foremost, he hides the dangerous being and lets the audiences’ imagination take over (reminscent of the same methods used in Jaws and Close Encounters). Secondly, he masters the effectiveness of a prolonged reaction shot—another of the director's trademarks— to help make a grand and utterly unbelievable moment more easily acceptable for an audience. Super 8 is full of these, and it only generates more excitement.
Unfortunately, Abrams doesn’t pull off one of Spielberg’s signatures: the conflicted parent-child relationship. Abrams sets up this tribute admirably, in quiet character-driven scenes between Joe and his father. At the start, Jackson admits that he will make a greater effort to be a better and more omnipresent dad. But the difficulties of the father-son bonding are rarely addressed after that scene, leading to an underdeveloped family dynamic.
But, that’s not the film’s biggest issue. Abrams struggles to find the right tone to unleash moments of mushy sentimentality. He simply cannot pull off the same emotional release that Spielberg is known for creating. This inexperience with big emotions leads to a credibility-straining, eye-rolling final ten minutes, where Super 8 abruptly shifts from a terrifying thriller to a family drama of such hackneyed gooeyness that it could fill a lifetime supply of Reese’s Pieces. To keep up with the references to that 1982 classic, let’s just say that, well, J.J. Phones In.
Nonetheless, much of Super 8 looks and feels like a classic tribute to Spielberg, and in many ways, it is a terrific one. It’s wonderfully acted, thrillingly shot, unpredictable and has that buoyant sense of wonder that any unabashed honour to the famed writer/director ought to have.
Oh, and do yourself a favour and stay for the terrific end credits surprise (Abrams kept his biggest secret for last).
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