REVIEW: SUPER 8

My Rating:




It's been a while since I've reviewed a movie (the last film I saw in theaters was the... sub-par Battle: Los Angeles), but none the less, let's give this a shot.

Writer/director J.J. Abrams' first film since 2009's Star Trek, Super 8 opens in 1979 with Sheriffs deputy, Jackson Lamb's (Kyle Chandler's) son, Joe (Joel Courtney) helping his friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) make a Super 8 film that's going to be be entered into a local (Ohio) film contest. Employing their buddies (including Joe's crush, Alice (Elle Fanning)), the gang begins looking for production value and begins shooting by a train station, hoping to yield some professional-looking locations. However, disaster soon strikes the extremely lucky kids, and the small Ohio town begins experiencing strange activity.


Abrams has a very characteristic visual style, noticeable from Lost to Fringe, Star Trek and Mission Impossible III, and just about every(any)thing else he directs or produces. One such quality is his signature lens flare, usually blue, although I don't think he's too picky. Let me be one of the many to say that no holds are barred for Abrams' latest. Halfway through the film I told myself that there must be people going to the concession stand, complaining about the constant lens flaring, only to hear some squeaky-voiced response of "that's Mr. Abrams style, miss!"

Another characteristic Abrams move is to leave his viewers in the dark (not literally, as you'll notice from the lens flares) in terms of plot. For a good majority of the movie, you will be given questions lacking any sort of reasonable answer, but only through patience, will you learn the truth. Mystery is one of Abrams' favorite things about storytelling; if anyone hates spoilers, I'm sure it's him. Check out this TED talk, starring Abrams and, wait for it... a mystery box. You might understand what I'm getting at after checking it out.

I only knew a few of the actors in the film going into it; Kyle Chandler I'd seen in King Kong and The Kingdom, Ron Eldard was that face you couldn't put a movie to (it turned out to be Black Hawk Down), Noah Emmerich I remembered extremely well from both The Truman Show and The Walking Dead, and even Joel McKinnon Miller was memorable from The Truman Show as well. However, I applaud Abrams for his genius young casting; both Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning I had never seen in anything before, yet both convinced me to the core that they are worth paying attention to in the future. The rest of the gang was fantastic, their interaction reminded me of The Goonies, which is of course a good thing.

The plot is kind of hard to get into without spoiling it, so I won't go into much detail at all. I had extremely high hopes for Super 8, but only found a few of these hopes satisfied in the end. I wasn't blown away by a fantastic twist, but I was definitely engaged with the characters and felt their frustration with the mystery as the story went on. Like I mentioned before, the gang of kids brought fleeting images of The Goonies, mainly because they were as funny as hell. Constant bickering and one-liners helped move any slow points in the film along, keeping me interested for the nearly two-hour runtime.

The only negative to the film is that I just wasn't as blown away as I'd hoped to be. The action was fantastic, acting was completely on-key (the Fannings are all good apparently), pace was well kept, and there was even a bit of emotion to compliment the already spot-on movie. If you're a fan of vintage Spielberg, this is what you've been waiting for. Although it might not have those memorable images that you associate with a specific film, nostalgia will set in with Super 8's similiarities to E.T., Close Encounters, and the Abrams' produced Cloverfield. However, don't get your hopes up too much. This may be an original script, but it has plenty of elements you've seen before.

This is J.J. Abrams childhood. Abrams, given a Super 8 camera by his grandfather when he was 10 year old (in 1976 mind you), began tinkering with it, sculpting him into the filmmaker he is today. Super 8 is a near-instant classic, employing the techniques Abrams is widely known for in an almost overused fashion. All of the stories mysteries were wrapped up neatly in the end, allowing for a summer film that anyone can enjoy.


Released: June 2011
Length: 1 hr 52 mins
Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Written by: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Riley Griffiths, Noah Emmerich, Ron Eldard
Rating: PG-13