//Movie Review: Super 8
Classic cinema is an action hero hanging off the edge of a cliff. Below him, a deep, dark crevasse of obscurity, a fall into which would certainly result in total erasure from modern memory. Standing above him, his nemesis: an ogre-like being comprised of a contemporary audience’s voracious appetite for bigger and better and technology’s ability to answer the demand. The antagonist steps on the hero’s knuckles and peels back his fingers, willing him to fall into the abyss.Last night, through the use of my social media prowess and my love of standing in long lines for lengthy periods of time, I was able to take part in a semi-secret screening of the much anticipated J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg collaboration, ‘Super 8’.
The film is set in the fictitious town of Lillian, Ohio in 1979 and focuses mostly on a group of horror movie geek kids– about 13 years old– making a zombie film using, what else, a Super 8 camera. While filming a scene for their film, the kids witness a wildly intense U.S. Air Force train derailment, the cause of which appears to be intentional. From that point forward, strange happenings in the town including the hasty departure of local pets from the town, large scale theft of huge items, military secrecy, and the unnatural disappearance of townspeople from their neighborhoods. The mysterious goings on only get weirder with the progression of the film, as do the special effects ranging from eyeball searing explosions, to floating Camaros, to, lets just say, accidents involving runaway tanks.
‘Super 8’ smacks of a lot of movies both new and old, probably because of the two people chiefly involved in the film’s fruition. The plucky group of friends, the distant father, the lonely daughter, the ruthless military commander, the boy discovering love. These are all characters that, if you’ve ever watched a movie, you’ve seen time and time again. Though the characters aren’t new, Abrams applies them in a way that made it feel like I was seeing all of them for the first time. Joel Courtney, for example, delivered his role in a way that impressed me in a way that I really didn’t expect. For a kid born in 1996, Courtney portrayed his character of young protagonist, Joe Lamb, the way a well seasoned actor might, using his surroundings and the other actors to convey subtleties that made Joe lovable instead of just likable.
The same can be said for the other child actors in the film including Ryan Lee (Cary), Riley Griffiths (Preston), Gabriel Basso (Martin) and Elle Fanning who played Alice Dainer, tween love interest to Joe. Jackson Lamb, played by Kyle Chandler, was an additionally well acted character whose role as Joe’s father may hit a little too close to home for some audience members. While some actors were better than others, everyone in the film was impeccably well cast.
The special effects, as if I even needed to say it, were mind-blowing. On more than one occasion were my teeth were clenched, my heart thumping and my nails digging into my seat as explosion after fiery explosion tore across the screen. Words don’t do the visuals justice, but I’ll try. Bus, smash. Tank, boom. House, crunch. Glass, shatter. Lots of guns, lots of bangs.
Abrams and Spielberg are great at what they do, but Spielberg is especially great at unsettling juxtaposition and creating timeless, indelible images in his work. For Spielberg its the the scene when the shark first comes into full view and Brody utters ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’ , the scene in which Indiana Jones is running away from a giant stone ball through a lost temple and E.T. asks to make a long distance call. ‘Super 8’ will be no exception. My money is on the moments right before and then during the train derailment. So jarring and so realistic, I see that one going down in history with the others.
Just as impressive to observe was the method with which the two film leviathans combine their particular fortes and specialities into a movie that whispered but didn’t singularly scream either directors name. Abrams’ employed liberal use of the shaky, handheld camera technique revamped in a film he produced, ‘Cloverfield’, as well as throwing in a murky, arcane symbol similar in nature to that used by the Dharma Initiative in ‘Lost’. Spielberg made sure to throw his own flavour in by dusting off the old ‘punch out the guard and take his uniform’ gag as well as keeping the the face and shape of the town’s destruction obscured until the movie’s climax. Both men individually throw light, all-in-good-fun jabs at one another’s work while even giving a tip of the hat to zombie movie godfather, George Romero.
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Super 8’. From the on screen chemistry to the production value that becomes a recurring joke throughout the movie, I found the film to be a rock solid hearkening back to the days of those quintessential action movies we still hold dear. That is also to say that Abrams and Spielberg made sure not to miss the forest for the CGI trees– a spider’s web in which many less sculpted movies become ensnared.
For me, ‘Super 8’ is representative of that last bit of mustered up energy and courage our cliff hanging action hero purposes to regain his footing, thwart his enemy and save the day. ‘Super 8’ opens in conventional theatres and in IMAX tomorrow. Make sure to follow //Apk at @apkmedia or on facebook.
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This is a review I wrote for APKALLDAY about Super 8. How did I like it? Were there enough loud noises? What exactly is a Super 8? Find out by reading yo face off!
