|
 It
seems strange in a world where virtually ever film arrives in theaters with
virtually all of its plot points and secrets uncovered thanks to the explosion
in entertainment news coverage, spoiler-heavy websites and coming attractions
previews that seem hell-bent on cramming as many plot twists, explosions and
joke punch lines into two minutes as they can, there used to be a time when
films would be released without having all their key moments exposed. Amazingly,
when people lined up to see films like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind,"
"Alien," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and "E.T.," they only had a vague idea of
what their basic stories were and little else--they didn't know what the Alien
or E.T. looked like, and as a result, they all had a far more profound impact on
viewers than they might have if everyone went in knowing exactly what to expect.
"Super 8," the super-secret collaboration between writer-director J.J. Abrams
and producer Steven Spielberg is a throwback to that bygone era in that it has
somehow managed to make it up to its release date with most of its secrets and
specifics still under wraps. As a result, there are plenty of surprises in store
in this film but the biggest one by far is that instead of being the
action-heavy monster movie suggested by the trailers, "Super 8" is actually a
delightful, touching and engrossing coming-of-age story that just happens to
have a rampaging monster in it as well.
"Super 8" is set in a small Ohio town circa 1979 and centers on Joe Lamb (Joel
Courtney), a young boy who, as the story opens, is still reeling from the
accidental death of his mother in a tragic accident at the local steel mill and
living with his dad (Kyle Chandler), a local deputy who is a good man at heart
but equally unable to deal with the loss of his wife or how to raise his son
alone--his most brilliant idea is to suggest sending Joe away for several weeks
to baseball camp so as to avoid dealing with things for a little while longer.
Joe doesn't want to leave because he has been helping his friend Charles (Riley
Griffiths) put together a Super-8 zombie movie to enter into a local film
festival along with fellow friends Cary (Ryan Lee), Preston (Zach Mills) and
Martin (Gabriel Basso). He especially doesn't want to leave once he discovers
that Charles has added another role to his script and convinced the lovely Alice
(Elle Fanning), a schoolmate who stands about a head taller than the others both
physically and emotionally, to take on the role. Although cast by Charles solely
as a way for him to get closer to her, she turns out to have genuine talent and
despite the fact that her drunken father (Ron Eldard) was indirectly responsible
for his mother's death, Joe develops a serious crush on her and to his
amazement, it seems as though she may feel the same way towards him.
One night, the kids sneak out of their homes to shoot a scene at a rarely used
train station. As they are preparing to shoot, a train begins to approach and
Charles, thrilled at the prospect of actual production value, starts shooting as
it passes by. A little further up the track, however, a pickup truck
deliberately drives onto the tracks towards the train and causes a massive
derailment and wreck that makes the train crash in "The Fugitive" look like a
minor fender-bender by comparison. Barely escaping with their lives, the kids
flee for home and promise never to say anything about what they saw but by the
next morning, army troops led by the hard-nosed Nelec (Noah Emmerich) arrive to
clean up the site and assure everyone that it was just a minor accident and that
nothing is wrong. Before long, a strange series of events begins to overtake the
town--all the local dogs have run away, the engines from all the cars in the
local car lots have disappeared and several people, including the sheriff, have
gone missing--and the military begins to crack down further on the town while
Joe's dad, now in charge, tries to get some answers to his ever-growing list of
questions. At first, the kids kind of ignore what is going on around them, even
continuing on with shooting the film and using the wreckage and military
presence as additional production value, but they eventually discover that
something of an alien nature was on the train that escaped during the wreck and
that the government will go to any lengths to contain it and anyone with any
knowledge about it.
J.J. Abrams has noted that he made "Super 8" as a tribute to the fantasy films
that Steven Spielberg either directed or produced during the 1980's in which
ordinary suburban kids were placed in extraordinary situations involving
treasure maps, things from another world and creatures with strict regulations
regarding diet and exposure to the sun. Indeed, viewers of a certain age
watching this film will no doubt have flashbacks to long-ago misspent Saturday
afternoons at the local multiplex watching stuff like "E.T." and "The Goonies."
The thing about those movies is that even though they were all produced under
Spielberg's watchful eye, the best of them were those done by directors who
possessed enough of a distinctive cinematic style to keep their films from
simply coming across as Spielberg clones--people like Robert Zemeckis or Joe
Dante, whose lovely and underrated "Explorers" feels like more of an influence
on the tone of "Super 8" than the likes of the oft-mentioned "The Goonies." The
trouble here is that while Abrams has definitely etched out his own territory on
the small screen thanks to such dizzyingly complex shows as "Alias," "Lost" and
"Fringe," he has yet to develop a similar personal signature with his big-screen
directorial efforts, which have included "Mission:
Impossible 3" and the "Star
Trek" reboot, and as a result, he spends more time paying tribute to
Spielberg's oeuvre than in striking out on his own--right down to having
composer Michael Giacchino and cinematographer Larry Fong slavishly emulating
the scoring and lens-flare heavy cinematography of Spielberg collaborators John
Williams and Allan Daviau--and the movie occasionally suffers as a result
because of the lack of such an individual stamp. Of course, stuff like this
isn't enough to torpedo a film--especially considering that a huge chunk of the
target audience won't even notice it or care--and Abrams does it better than
most of the other pretenders to Spielberg's throne but while watching the film,
I couldn't help but wonder what Abrams might have accomplished if he had tried a
little harder to make his own mark rather than slavishly follow in the footsteps
of his forerunners.
That said, as cinematic simulacra goes, "Super 8" is still a mighty entertaining
ride and while the stuff involving the alien presence has been the focus of the
vast majority of the pre-release hype, I suspect that most viewers will come
away from the film preferring the stuff involving the kids and their efforts to
make their silly-but-sincere zombie epic. The action-oriented stuff is all done
in a fairly spectacular manner--although the train crash will no doubt get all
the buzz, there are plenty of other exciting bits to behold as well--but for the
most part, it is stuff that most of us have seen before in one form or another
and results in a few scenes that either come across as repetitive or which lead
to plot holes that run the risk of deflating the entire enterprise. On the other
hand, the stuff involving the kids, especially the early scenes before the train
wreck, is frequently hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt and knowledgeable in
their everyday byplay, especially during that strange period of time when some
have crossed over that mysterious line into adolescence and others haven't quite
made the journey. Amongst the former, Elle Fanning is simply spectacular as
Alice in the way that she comes across as scarily poised and mature while still
seeming like a real small-town kid--between this and her recent turn in Sofia
Coppola's "Somewhere," she has definitely grown into a young actress worth
watching. Amongst the latter, newcomer Joel Courtney is excellent as Joe--his
sweetly awkward byplay with Fanning is touching and his reaction when she gives
him a zombie bite during a rehearsal is pretty much worth the price of
admission--and Riley Griffiths is hilarious as the would-be Spielberg who
responds to cast complaints with a delightfully petulant "God, I'm just
directing!" that will no doubt resonate with frustrated auteur's of all ages. As
for the adults, their roles are as limited as they usually were in such films
back in the day but Kyle Chandler has a few good scenes as Joe's dad, a man who
is trying to do the right thing by his son but is too blinded by grief and
confusion to realize that he is doing the exact opposite.
This is a exciting and energetic tale that will entertain and resonate with
audiences of all ages, whether they are old enough to cheer shout-outs to the
likes of George Romero and makeup legend Dick Smith or not. Beyond the
aforementioned narrative problems (which weren't exactly unfamiliar aspects of
the films it is paying tribute to) and my sneaking suspicion that it might have
been even better if Abrams had just dropped all the sci-fi stuff completely and
concentrated solely on the kids instead, the biggest problem with "Super 8" may
be the enormous expectations that it has generated as a result of the
combination of the Abrams-Spielberg dream teaming and its status as one of the
few original premises in a summer movie season choked with sequels, remakes and
rip-offs. No, it is not the cinematic equivalent of the Second Coming that some
have hoped it to be. However, if you are looking for an entertaining and
well-crafted film that will thrill younger viewers while transporting older ones
back to the time when they first fell in love with the movies themselves, "Super
8" delivers the goods. |
