Super 8: A Return to Vintage Spielberg?
Super 8 isn’t quite up to the level of Steven Spielberg’s finest early-80s work — but it’s surprisingly close, a sci-fi movie with heart that is thrillingly directed by Spielberg worshipper J.J. Abrams. Is Abrams playing God? As Steve Martin put it, when his mad-scientist character was accused of this in The Man with Two Brains, “Somebody has to!” In a Hollywood that’s becoming increasingly reliant on special effects at the expense of story — of wowing you without bothering to make you care — somebody has to remind us how the master used to do it.
The influence of Spielberg, who has blessed this project by taking a producer credit on it, is all over every frame of this delightful combination sci-fi extravaganza and childhood fable about five teen friends who are making a zombie movie in the late 1970s in an Ohio steel town with a then-current Super 8 camera.
The movie immediately gets you in the throat without a word being spoken, as we learn of the death of a mom and steel worker who was crushed to death in an accident, leaving her cop husband (Kyle Chandler, who has proven himself one of TV’s all-time best dads in Friday Night Lights) and a stricken but resilient son named Joe (a very impressive Joel Courteney). At the mom’s wake, the adults are full of dread but even here the kids show imagination, spark, and ambition, neatly displaying how youth leads the way.
Joe’s chubby friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) is determined to carry on directing a monster movie for which he has managed to nab the school’s ruling queen bee Alice (Elle Fanning, who like her older sister Dakota is a natural) as lead actress. Joe, who is serving as a makeup and special effects man on the project, is awed by the coup of securing Alice, who is so cool she even agrees to drive the kids to their shooting locations even though she is too young to have a license. But her father Mr. Dainard (Ron Eldard) is a drunk, a dismal loner and a community pariah. Joe’s father warns him to have nothing to do with Mr. Dainard or his daughter.
Still, the kids carry on with their Super 8 movie, the filming of which brings them to a close encounter of a very weird kind. A train wreck deliberately caused by the kids’ most brilliant teacher (Glynn Turman) releases hundreds of strange metal blocks the size of Rubik’s Cubes — and draws the interest of the Air Force, which immediately takes over security in the area and starts behaving suspiciously, even trying to trace the tire tracks of a car they learn was in the area at the same time as the crash. This car is the one that Alice and the five younger kids had used.
Another Sci-Fi movie with lots of special effects. Wow, how unique. Hard to believe that Spielberg actually made real-life movies like Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, and a little-known movie that was very powerful, Empires of the Sun. I think I’ll stick with the real-life stuff. There’s enough science fiction going on in Washington these days (especially where Nancy Pelosi is concerned) that people actually dealing with reality would be quite refreshing.
Hold on there, friend. Consider the venerable western. Just because it isn’t a new genre, doesn’t mean it can’t be unique. Was ‘Stagecoach’ unique? ‘Unforgiven’ unique? ‘The Magnificent Seven’? That’s 60 years of westerns right there, and oaters had been going for 20 years before Stagecoach.
‘Saving Private Ryan’ was a contemplation of the value of human life of awe inspiring breadth and depth; a well-told story; and a superb technical achievement, one might add. War stories have been around since the start of feature films, too.
It’s said there only 12 basic kinds of story-we are told the same ones over and over, but in different ways.
I’m going to see Super 8 in about 6 hours, so I’ll let you know if it’s any good or not.
Spielberg has always been a good astoryteller, and keep his tech innovation in support, rather than the story itself. If he can get natural storytelling back in vogue,I am all for it.
PS-’Empire’ sucked-the kid was so obnoxious, I walked out halfway through.
Judging films and an appreciation of the art of any individual one is highly subjective. Christopher Hitchens wrote that M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” was one of “the 10 worst films of the past decade.” I disagree and think it was a very good film and don’t see, even under an argument of one opinion being as good as the next, how one could in any way argue it was simply a bad film.
That being said, if you think “Empire of the Sun” sucked then please spare me any reports about “Super 8″. While one could argue that “Empire…” is somewhat over-directed and overly self-aware of itself as a film, it is still an impressive work.
John, you’re review convinced me. This movie sounds wonderful! Good stories almost always revolved around good characters, and Super 8 sounds like it has that (too rare) quality in spades. Thanks!
The television previews had “Spielberg” written all over them. I’m ambivalent. Spielberg at his best was able to balance his fantasy plots and effects with genuine interest in his characters, both the juveniles and the adults. But after a while, back in the 80s, I got kind of tired of his repititious, sentimental, suburban-kid memories and his hyperactive-kid-at-Disneyland SFX and pacing. I’m hoping this movie will be more grounded and less like a frenetic Saturday morning cereal commercial. I think he and Abrams can do it.
I’m a bit disappointed that they’re apparently basing the movie on Spielberg’s favorite conflict: the Spunky Average Joes/Kids vs. the Shadowy, Threatening Government/Military Agency. All it needs is for the kids to help the Kind Aliens escape by building a wacky spaceship out of bicycle parts and Legos. I’m really hoping it doesn’t go that way…
Well, looks like I’m not going to get to see Super 8. My local AMC multiplex wants $8 for a seat in the “ETX” theater to see the film. At 10 AM. No film is worth $8. I don’t even know what ETX is. And really don’t care.
$8.00, Where do you live?
I live in suburban ATL and a movie ticket hasn’t been as cheap as $8.00 for around 10 years.
sounds lovely. thanks for the thorough, thoughtful review. I look forward to taking my kids to this movie. I hadn’t considered it before.
Never seen or been a fan of Spielberg’s ‘ET’. I grew up with 1950′s ‘Red Scare Sci-Fi’. Where the Prime Directive of all Extra Terrestrials, Giant Lizards and Bug Eyes Monsters was to tear up Downtown Tokyo or Manhattan and/or kick the Army or Marines’ backside in the process.
Took my 14 yo son to see the midnight premier in Baltimore. Very sparsely attended. Thought the crowd would be bigger, given the pedigree of the production team.
When I saw the previews, I had the thought that I couldn’t tell if it was more E.T. or Cloverfield. Turns out it was a blend of both. The character development was extremely well thought out. I commend Abrams for not going all Michael Bay on us. That would have ruined an otherwise fun experience.
Nukemhill, you were in Baltimore after midnight and still alive to talk about it?. What’s the name of the bodyguard company you employ?
That’s funny.
I am also curious.
Saw it last night and the review could not be more wrong.This has a very tired plot of the evil government against a small town.The characters are drawn as cartoon figures.Special effects do go in the Michael Bay tradition to the ridiculous. Twelve year old’s romance? No thanks.
Just saw the movie. It’s very entertaining, but really a remake/amalgamation of ET (Spielberg, of course), Goonies, and the made-for-TV production of Steven King’s “It”. It pisses me off no end, though, that while our young military people are getting killed and having limbs blown off in Afghanistan and Iraq, they’re still portrayed by Hollywood as either bad guys, or the enablers of bad guys. Puh-leeese grow up! However, the young male & female leads are excellent, and the movie is definitely worth seeing.
Before the lights went down, I noticed that most of the people in the audience were my age (old). For my movie enjoyment that doesn’t bode well. I like sci-fi and love sfx. The sci-fi was on the level of the sci-fi channel, you know, urine poor. The story was a poor adaptation of Goonies. Save your money.
My husband loved it – I was disappointed. The relationships between the kids were terrific, as was their acting. But the story beyond that was ET phoning home – the poor maligned monster just wanting to return to wherever he came from. And I really resent movies where the military are treated like sadistic idiots. There was no need to show the military in such a negative light. I am really getting sick of Hollywood’s pretensions. Which is probably why I ignore most of what’s out there. I gather I am not alone.
Saw this film Sunday in suburban Atlanta. OK, my wife kinda liked it – but I (retired AF) was squirming 1/3 of the way through. The film is virulently anti-Air Force. The Air Force (and later Army) dudes are all one dimensional evil doers: they killed the poor, good intentioned (black) scientist who only wanted to help ET go home; they set fire to the whole town and run their tanks through it shooting right and left; they kidnapped little children; they stole a little boys locket from his dead mother; etc etc etc. Not one of the AF guys has an ounce of decency.
If you are going to have a movie that needs bad guys (and most do) why not use somebody other than the people that lay down their lives for to protect our lives and freedoms – freedoms that allow multi-millionaire filmmakers to produce slanderous anti-military films.
Somebody with nads needs to call BS on this crap.
I concur – definitely a simplistic, anti-military film full of Leftist jabs – but would you expect anything less from a modern-day Steven Spielberg?
I was quite disappointed by ‘Super 8′ – it was entirely predictable.
If our military were as pathetic as Hollywood portrays them we’d all be speaking Russian by now.
There are no leftist jabs or anti-military jabs or anything like that but what idiots want to see in “Super 8″. Story thrives on the good guys and the bad guys and they are mostly depicted in stark contrasts. This has been so for a long, long time. There are plenty of films where the military is portrayed in a good light. These are not pro-military films but films where the military happens to occupy the good guy space.
Edgar Rice Burroughs is rather routinely portrayed as a racist nowadays for his Tarzan novels but they are nothing of the sort. It is the same stark contrasts of good and bad. What people choose to ignore is the black folks in those novels that are depicted as the most loyal or bravest and instead concentrate on what it is they want to find and see and that is racism because of the instances where black people are the bad guys.
Burroughs pulled no punches; his good guys were over the top good and bad guys the same way. Some times stories choose to play off that penchant in many stories and depict characters in a grey area or conflicted.
Americans are supposed to be smart – wake up and be smart; this film has nothing to do with politics Left or Right. “Super 8″ is competent and charming and well done.
Rilly
Agree Super 8 is competent, has some charm and is technically well done. And maybe Spielberg did not consciously intend to make an anti-US military statement, but even you admit the US military depicted in this film aren’t just bad, they are ‘over the top bad’. Do you not find it at least curious that when scanning the shopping list of who could be the bad guys, the Hollywood moviemakers opted not for a ‘shadowy corporation’, ‘terrorists’, or agents of a foreign power but the US military? I’m thinking that puzzling (to me, at least)choice wasn’t an accident.
To me, it’s just a plot device and nothing more. If it’s anything more than that it may be purposefully invoking Spielberg’s “Close Encounters…”.
“Close Encounters…” itself, and “E.T….”, invoked popular culture and not real hatred or purposeful mistrust of the military. Movies are powered by stereotypes and they are mostly not grey area but stark contrasts.
When Heinlein wrote “Starship Troopers” he was pilloried for the opposite reason but it’s just a book, not reality.
Spielberg and Abrams are invoking black helicopters and Roswell and Area 51 and Bermuda Triangles and putting “what if” scenarios behind them. Anyone familiar with the background of Spielberg knows he just likes SF, wants to be creative, have fun and make money; I just don’t read stuff into it.
If you want to watch movies that, in my opinion, are actually guilty of fostering stupid stereotypes, try Stephen Marshall’s 2005 “This Revolution”. You don’t have to wonder where that movie is coming from as it is as bigoted and full of bootless stereotypes as the worst films of the 30s but in the opposite direction and it IS making a political statement.
How about that odious play “Rent”, which was justifiably sent up in “Team America: World Police” as the stupid politically correct and provincially moralizing social engineering it is.
I don’t have a problem with SF but with movies and plays like “Rent” that pass themselves off as the optimal moral reality but are arguably as much a fantasy as “Lord of the Rings”.
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