I'll be frank straight off the bat though, I'm no fan of JJ Abrams whatsoever. Cloverfield was fun I admit, but he didn't direct it. His Mission Impossible 3 was boring, I couldn't give a rat's ass about dismal shit like Lost, and his Star Trek reboot (although I have warmed to it on secondary viewings) was a Star Trek movie made for people that don't like Star Trek (i.e. bad to the point of being offensive). Spielberg on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. He’s very easy to knock and take pot shots at, but the geezer knows his onions, and the day I badmouth the man responsible for Raiders of the Lost Ark is the day them pigs start flying! So yes the creative forces behind this have many varying, different degrees of quality between them.
After a poignant opening, we meet Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), son of a small town policeman trying to deal with the premature death of his mother in a tragic work accident. 4 months on from the tragedy and he's being recruited by his movie obsessed best buddy Charles (Riley Griffiths) to help him complete a Super 8 zombie movie over the school holidays in order to eventually enter it in a competition; getting all their mates on board including new friend Alice (Elle Fanning). Alice is the daughter of the man Joe's father holds responsible for his wife's death and so both father's are dead set against their friendship. The kids set to work making their movie anyway, filming after school and in the evenings. One evening they all head off to the train tracks to film a new scene and it at this point the film diverges from one genre to the other. I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't curious to see this film without the extraterrestrial aspects. On it's own as a coming of age tale this could indeed have been very interesting and is clearly where all the Stand By Me comparisons are coming from. Nonetheless the alien element is cracking fun and the film is not diminished by it. It's just different, and takes the film off on quite a tangent.
At the train track filming the kids witness a spectacular train crash. In a stunning set piece, carriages are flung far and wide, things explode, and ultimately a rather aggressive alien is unleashed. In the aftermath of the crash they find their school science teacher has a long held secret regarding some top secret government work, and gradually strange things start happening in town. Generators and microwaves and car engines are all stolen and every single dog in the area runs away!
Now from this point on the film is not perfect, but it is above all else a lot of fun. In particular the design of the alien is very uninspired. Looking like a mix of something from Men In Black, and a Transformer it's poorly rendered cgi means the creature leaves little to no impression on the viewer. The anchor of the film is left to be the kids and their friendship, and fortunately this gets us through! That's not to give the impression that everything involving the alien is bad though. There are some cracking set pieces, from the train crash to a bus attack to a suburban war zone; and once the alien was unleashed we feel more like we're in a Spielberg film. There's some classic Spielberg-ian show and tell going on. Show you everything but tell you nothing. A cherry picker scene amongst the tree tops (with an unseen force the other side of the trees being very reminiscent of some Jurassic Park velociraptor interfaces); or the gas station incident with the local sheriff, both straight out of Spielberg’s big book of classics.
There is much fun to be had with Super 8. I saw it on a grim, wintery Friday afternoon. At a loose end with the afternoon off work, Super 8 was the perfect way to spend the time.
Super 8? More like Super Great!
IMDB: Super 8
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