I'm not a kid anymore, but I'm still learning lessons, sometimes over and over again. You'd think I might proceed with caution upon hearing that the movie Steven Spielberg was producing and J.J. Abrams was writing and directing was a loving homage to THE best movies of my lifetime. You'd think I would hold my expectations in check because I've been burned in the past when I've blindly submitted to movie hype. However, you'd be wrong. With Super 8, I neither proceeded with caution nor held my expectations in check. And guess what? I got burned.
In my defense, I'm the person who once said, after sitting in a theater weeping during the "Kick the Can" segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, "Steven Spielberg can do no wrong." As it turned out, the truth was that he could indeed do wrong and, in my opinion, has done wrong many times since then. But at that time in his career, with Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. behind him, I don't think I was making an unrealistic statement.
Spielberg started out in TV, you know. And in that arena, J.J. Abrams could also do no wrong. Felicity, Alias and Lost were all favorite shows of mine, before I even realized that Abrams was their guiding force. (Fringe continues to be a favorite.) Then he made Star Trek, not only the best big screen franchise reboot I've ever seen, but also one of the most exciting movies I've ever seen. Surely the team of Spielberg and Abrams would be a match made in cinematic heaven. How could Super 8 possibly fail?
While not a disaster on the scale of Hook (Spielberg) or Undercovers (Abrams), Super 8 is nevertheless a disappointment. When did a producer's/director's intentions for making a movie become such a big part of its marketing campaign? I can't help but feel I would have appreciated Super 8 more if I was the one who decided it was a throwback to my favorite movies instead of someone telling me that's what it was. I would like to have experienced the wonder myself rather than being told that I was going to feel it.
A perfect tone is set from the very first note of Michael Giacchino's score as the Paramount stars swirl around their mountain top. And much of Super 8 is indeed perfect, starting with an introduction that succinctly tells us everything we need to know (and will hope to learn) about our young protagonist, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney). It's not a spoiler to reveal here that when his mother is killed in an accident at the local steel mill, Joe is left with his father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), neither boy nor man ready to cope with their new life. (However, it would be a spoiler to reveal the identity of the blonde man who Jackson promptly escorts to jail when he appears at his house after the funeral and the significance of the locket that Joe clutches in his small hand.)
Four months later, in the summer of 1979, Joe has the distraction of helping his friends make an 8mm movie for a regional contest. While filming late one night, the gang is witness to a horrific train crash. When they run for cover, their tripod topples and the camera continues shooting, capturing on film what will later reveal the "secret" of Super 8. And here, the seeds of the movie's disappointment are planted.
Up to this point, Super 8 is a wonderful family and coming of age drama. I don't recall a movie that so subtly, yet so completely, paints a picture of the joys and sorrows of growing up, the laughter and the heartbreak. The cast is excellent, the moments are sweet. THIS is a movie I would watch over and over again. But then a funny thing happens, and it's something that would normally be the icing on the cake for me: a monster appears. And this cake suddenly becomes stale.
Perhaps because the drama part of Super 8 is so strong, the first monster appearances are a distraction. And don't confuse my use of the word "appear" as an indication that we EVER get a good look at this monster. Sure, at the end we get glimpses, but they are fleeting. Until then, we only see bits and pieces of it, as well as the violent results of its handiwork. What's missing is a great payoff, but that moment never comes. Super 8 tries, but its biggest failing in attempting to pay homage is that it instead becomes unoriginal.
Why, oh why, does it fail? A movie where Lillian, Ohio IS my hometown of Enid, Oklahoma, where I remember riding my bike downtown to the camera shop, just like the kids in Super 8… a movie where the boy has a Halloween poster hanging on his wall and a TIE fighter hanging from his ceiling… a movie where the clicking together of tiny square jars of model paint is a familiar sound… a movie where the middle school students probably make Super 8 films for extra credit… Super 8 is not just about nostalgia for my childhood; heck, it's about ME! (And it's not only because a monster never appeared in Enid that I began disliking Super 8 when one appeared in the movie.)
I think the biggest misstep of Super 8 is that it squanders the execution of its "hook": the 8mm film that reveals what crawled out of the wreckage of the train. That's a great concept and certainly one to build a movie around, but there's absolutely no suspense in using it here. When told that a "rush" job to develop the film will take three days, we should feel every agonizing hour in anticipation. Instead, it's merely forgotten. The problem is that the kids don't KNOW what's on the film, so it's usefulness as a plot device is practically negated.
When they do discover what's on the film, Super 8 goes to fast-forward. Its careful, thoughtful pace is left in the dust of a frantic "rescue-the-girl-from-the-monster" adventure. But it is completely standard; there is nothing special remaining. It is here that I think most of the comparisons to early Spielberg are made.
It's Spielberg-lite, though. I mean, in E.T., you'll never forget Elliott's long bicycle ride through town, being chased by the bad guys… the music builds… there's a roadblock… you feel like you're going to scream from the suspense… and then John Williams' score explodes… and the bicycle flies! The release of emotion every time I've seen it returns to me now as I write this; I literally have chills. Super 8 has no such moment, and it's desperately needed for the characters we now care so much about.
It tries, but its climax is – SPOILER - strictly Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (Lite, though, of course.) In robbing from the real classic, Super 8 doesn’t even take time to milk the ending for what it's worth. Instead, it lingers on a shot so heavy-handed that it nearly tears down the perfection of everything so lovingly built in the first part of the movie. I don't want to ruin the image for you in case you're buying into it, but for me it's a metaphor so obvious I'm actually offended it's used.
While I recognize aspects of E.T. and Close Encounters in Super 8, the comparison I've heard most often is to The Goonies. As much as I loved the movies of that era, I've never cared for The Goonies. Super 8 is not The Goonies… and that's a GOOD thing. Much more grounded in reality with more believable situations and fewer annoying characters, it turns out that Super 8 is perfect from start to finish when compared to The Goonies.
Standing on its own, though, it's only half-perfect. The monster in Super 8 isn't the only beast Spielberg and Abrams had to wrestle; it was also the combined might of their legacies. Instead of working together to create something fresh and new, they've only borrowed from themselves to remind us of better times. It almost works; I mean, they've borrowed from the best. And because of that, Super 8 is a good movie. But, for me, it really should have been great.
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