SUPER 8
Joseph W. Smith III
Williamsport Sun-Gazette, 6/16
***1/2 (out of four)
“Super 8” is a movie about kids making movies.
It’s also about a powerful alien monster.
And young love.
And a catastrophic train wreck.
And the 1970s.
More than anything, it’s about kids and parents dealing with grief and learning
to treat each other decently.
In the grand tradition of early Steven Spielberg, “Super 8” is the first great
movie of the summer -- funny, scary, clever, convincing and loaded to the gills with
heart and soul.
Just as Spielberg did with Drew Barrymore, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw, it’ll
make stars of folks you never heard of -- particularly the group of actors playing
middle-school pals who stumble on a military secret while making an amateur movie
about zombies.
Remember Henry Thomas in “E.T.”? That’s how good Joel Courtney is as Joe
Lamb, who is mourning the death of his mother while carrying a torch for the 15-year-
old girl who agrees to star in the kids’ production.
And Elle Fanning (Dakota’s younger sis) is sensational as Joe’s crush, Alice --
particularly when she and Joe watch home-movie footage of him as a baby with his
mom.
Count on seeing more of Fanning soon -- and often.
The ambitious youth who’s making the film has created a role for Alice
because, he claims, it’ll give his amateur movie more emotion if his hero has a loving
wife.
In this way, “Super 8’s” writer-director, J. J. Abrams, shows his hand about the
way his movie operates.
Sure, it’s a dazzling action film -- chock full of huge explosions, nifty effects,
frantic chases and tasty jolts.
But none of it would matter if we didn’t care about the characters, and in this
regard Abrams takes a page (several in fact) from his childhood hero, Spielberg -- who
also served as producer on “Super 8.”
Against the beautifully authenticated late-seventies time period, these kids --
with their forthright manner, hilarious insults and courage in the face of terror --
instill “Super 8” with the exuberance of early Spielberg efforts like “Goonies” and
“Close Encounters.”
Meanwhile, Abrams brings some of the terror and authenticity of Spielberg’s
“Jaws” and its predecessor -- his classic TV thriller “Duel” -- to the action scenes as
well.
In particular, the computer imagery is carefully integrated with heavy doses of
live-action effects, giving the film a richly realistic visual palette; and Abrams resists
showing us the whole monster till the very end.
On top of everything else, “Super 8” is uproariously funny -- often at the very
same time that it has you by the throat in fear and suspense.
My only complaint was the nagging question of how a pickup truck caused a
massive freight train to fly apart like a watermelon hit with a bazooka.
But that’s a quibble; in every other way, “Super 8” is dandy summer
entertainment.