A spirited, infectiously engrossing homage to Cold War-era creature features, Steven Spielberg, and assorted Amblin Entertainment films from the 1980s, J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 generates a crackerjack narrative kick and could very well be the most entertaining popcorn movie of the summer (though I suspect Cowboys and Aliens will give it a good run for it’s money). Much like the creature at it’s center, Abrams has concocted a plot made up of spare parts, skillfully blending elements from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, * batteries not included, The Goonies, and Jaws into a movie which feels organically whole. There is certainly a kind of self-reflexive glee in the way the pieces all come together, which should amuse anyone who grew up in the seventies and eighties, but Super 8 is more than a nostalgia trip. The actors fully commit to the material (the kids are really great), the camera work is nimble and the editing sharp and propulsive, the special-effects are top-notch, and the big emotional moments are well-earned. Trading Spielberg’s SoCal suburbia for a more lived-in, mid-western, rust-belt milieu, Abrams amps up the suspense with each turn of the plot. Stick around for the credits (which includes, I think, a humorous nod to the recent indie hit Paranormal Activity).
How’d you see this already?
It opened today at the AMC on the IMAX screen. I decided that would be a good way to avoid finishing my FIF (which I just completed) so I hit the 10:45 am showing. I think Max will like it a lot.
we watched it today. i enjoyed it well enough, but i didn’t like it quite as much as jeff. i thought some of the kids were kind of annoying (especially the fat one and the one with the braces), and jesus, get the father/child bonding out of the way so i can see the alien and its nanobot spacecraft.
also, i’m not sure. at the end did the kid “let his mother go”? is that like a metaphor?
I enjoyed it well enough, too, and agree with Jeff’s characterization of its narrative charms….but I wonder if we really need nostalgic tributes to Spielberg’s sentimentality from the 1970s/80s. Now that Spielberg is a Saint because he has addressed Every Important Topic, even his worst tendencies will be lionized. The evocation of the 1970s seemed more paint-by-numbers than heartfelt. What happened to everybody’s mother? And how come the kid with the braces (type: unstable nerd, sidekick) gets to risk his life for the central character…and then, during the tornado of schmaltz when everyone else is being reunited with their distant/delinquent fathers, nobody is there to meet him? Could it be that there’s a hierarchy of domination behind all of the tears? I saw this in the IMAX theater–which apparently means that for $5 extra, the movie will be darker, less clear and extremely loud. Hooray Marketing! I can’t wait to see Transformers in the 3D Imax and see if my ears will bleed…
I liked this as much as Jeff did, and I had no problems with the kids like Arnab did (hey Arnab, why do you hate fat kids?). Spielberg would have handled the kids a lot better, I would have to admit. But I enjoyed them. I didn’t see the kid with braces as nerdy and unstable. He seemed to have a one-track mind: blow shit up.
The Spielberg traces are everywhere, especially (or perhaps most of all) from Close Encounters which, perhaps you’ve forgotten, Jeff, takes place in Muncie, Indiana. In fact, I think this film tries its best to recreate that feel of lower-middle class suburbia that I know so well, that resonated so much for me when I first saw Close Encounters back in 1977.
And in many ways, this is a re-write of Close Encounters. To me, it seems like it has all the changes Spielber would make if he were to rewrite it. Originally, the hero of Close Encounters was to be a police man, since Spielberg reckoned that audiences would believe and trust someone in uniform. Here, the son of a policeman is the hero–but his father is on a parallel track (the point being to ultimately make parallel tracks intersect–the great Classical Hollywood ruse).
I was a bit let down with the final 30 minutes or so. Couldn’t quite figure out if I was to like/pity the alien or be afraid of him. When we see his secret underground lair, and realize he is eating humans, are we supposed to be grossed out? Or are we supposed to feel bad for this poor schmuck who doesn’t really want to have to eat humans, he just wants to go home, but Christ! what the hell is he supposed to eat while he’s here? Reese’s Pieces?
I would have loved to have seen the role of film considerably larger (get it? “role” of film?) but there was enough to get a real sense of the glee these kids have for movies and movie making. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how they managed synch sound. Really? With Super 8mm?
Here are some snippets of Spielberg’s Firelight, a two-hour film he made in 1964. Apparently it did well in Spain and Japan.
We all saw this? I was trying to drum up something interesting, but didn’t get past simply parroting smart stuff I’ve heard John say before, or what Jeff said early on. I seemed to be on the Jeff/John end of the enjoyment continuum–I found the work with the kids to be smart, unkitschy, often moving. I was a fat kid, so I get annoyed by how aggressively fat-kid they always are in films, but I actually thought it was a bit toned down from the normal Hollywood approach. (See, e.g., Monster House, Stand By Me.)
The smart stuff John has mentioned before, and maybe contra Michael a little: Spielberg was actually pretty damn dark. Close Encounters is about a family that is breaking apart, and a dad who ultimately opts to leave not just his family but Earth, for crying out loud. Sure, there’s some schmaltz, but it’s NOT without a real bitter/bleak edge–and I thought Abrams captured that, too….
wow, i finally know why i’ve always hated mike.
Got to love the French. I guess they didn’t get a chance to see War Horse or The Adventures of Tintin . . .
Cahiers du Cinéma’s Top Ten list for 2011
L’Etrange affaire Angélica (The Strange Case of Angelica), Manoel de Oliveira
Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope), Nanni Moretti
L’Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close) (House of Tolerance), Bertrand Bonello
Melancholia, Lars von Trier
Super 8, JJ Abrams
Essential Killing, Jerzy Skolimowski
Hors Satan (Outside Satan), Bruno Dumont
Un été brûlant (A Burning Hot Summer), Philippe Garrel
The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
Meek’s Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt
I need to post a few words about Melancholia soon. Great film . . . Von Trier’s best since Breaking the Waves . . .
Super 8: seriously? I guess the French have thing for sentimental fluff. Even as Spielberg homage it didn’t work.
The French love Spielberg–especially the Cahiers folks.
Sure, but it’ not Spielberg; it’s JJ Abrams. And that shows. I didn’t hate it, but if Spielberg’s name didn’t appear in the credits, and it weren’t so overt an homage, would any of us take it seriously?
Well, I don’t think you can say Super 8 is not Spielberg (who produced) any more than you can say Poltergeist is not Spielberg. I wonder if I’d take it less seriously if Spielberg’s name wasn’t on it. I’d be saying, “What is this blatant rip off of Spielberg?” Knowing that Abrams collaborated with Spielberg, I say “Okay, so it is Spielberg.”
Point Blank is not Spielberg.
It’s no Jack Kennedy either.