Super 8
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Lambert and Kyle Chandler
DVD release: 17 November 2011
Rated: M
Learning from the best
The master finally has a pupil to carry on his legacy. The master is Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood giant whose body of work includes some of cinema’s most beloved films. Now he’s put his name – and presumably his money – behind J.J. Abrams’ new project, Super 8. The result is a film that unashamedly pays homage to Spielberg while being a compelling story in its own right.
It has to be said that this is
not on a par with
Spielberg’s finest works, but Abrams – after a couple of recent
misfires – shows enough to suggest he could be the logical successor to
the maestro.
Abrams, of course, shot to prominence with the TV series Lost. Since then, his directorial credits have included Mission Impossible 3 and Star Trek (the 2009 version); neither of which have exactly set the world on fire despite some big budgets and massive publicity. Super 8 however has a much stronger script and far more relatable characters than its predecessors.
The story centres on a group of young friends making a movie using a Super 8 camera in the late 1970s. The director of this zombie-filled opus is Charles (Riley Lambert) an enthusiastic but somewhat haphazard amateur filmmaker. His go-to guy for things like make-up and special effects is Joe (Joel Courtney). The son of Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler), a local deputy sheriff, Joe is a good kid but is under constant scrutiny because of his father’s role in the community. When Charles casts Alice (Elle Fanning) as a character in his film, puppy love starts to bloom between her and Joe. Charles makes the fateful decision to film a scene at the local railway station. He decides that a shot of a passing train would make a great addition to the atmosphere of the movie. Just as the train goes past however, a local teacher Dr Woodward (Glynn Turman) drives his pick-up onto the tracks and smashes into it.
The train however is not your ordinary freight service – it’s a special US Air Force transport. But what was it carrying? Perhaps whatever it was could be responsible for a series of power outages in the area and – more worryingly – the disappearance of several local citizens. And perhaps the answer to the mystery can be found on the super-8 film in Charles’s camera, which kept rolling during the crash.
The comparison that immediately occurred to me watching most of the film was to Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me; although there are elements of several others as well – many of them Spielberg films. References to the likes of E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even Jaws abound. There’s even the trademark “soft” ending.
It comes as no surprise that the production values are high. The re-creation of the era is spot-on and the special effects – while sometimes rather over-the-top – are nonetheless spectacular.
The film centres largely on the kids, so much of the acting burden falls on their young shoulders. Joel Courtney as Joe is the hero of the piece and carries it off with considerable pizzazz. He makes his character sufficiently empathetic so that we can take the journey with him and his friends. Elle Fanning is once more (remember her in Somewhere?) excellent as Alice, providing not just a gentle love interest, but – along with Riley Lambert as the rather bossy young director - plenty of fun as well. Of the adults, Kyle Chandler – probably best known for his TV roles in the likes of Early Edition and Grey’s Anatomy – is the glue that holds the whole thing together as the dogged deputy; while Ron Eldard also makes an impression as Alice’s drunken dad.
Super 8 marks something of a milestone for Abrams. Arguably for the first time in his movie career he’s able to take us past the special effects to give us a solid story and characters. Some would see the influence of Spielberg in this. Whether that’s actually the case or not, only a few people know; but you’d have to think it was unlikely to be pure coincidence. It seems that modern cinema’s sorcerer now has his apprentice.
David Edwards