Super 8 is the rarest thing in the world nowadays, a movie that wants to surprise you. It comes to theaters in unusual secrecy, amid a marketing compaign emphasizing suspense and anticipation over giving everything away. Somehow or other I got to the theater knowing practically nothing about the film except for the names of writer-director J. J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg. That’s next to impossible with most movies nowadays.
If Hollywood has learned anything in the last few decades, it’s that the last thing audiences want is anything unexpected. If audiences loved The Hangover once, they’ll love it even more the second time around, beat for beat, in the sequel. If they loved Jack Sparrow or Kung Fu Panda once, why not six times? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—that’s Hollywood’s credo.
If you must make a movie that’s not a sequel, a remake or an adaptation of a comic book or TV show, there’s still no reason why it can’t be exactly like a dozen other films out there. Above all, the more the trailers and advertisements give away, the better audiences like it. Nothing matters more than packing in as much of your potential audience on opening weekend.
Gone are the days when a movie like E.T. could open to a mere $11 million, build on word of mouth, and go on to earn more than $350 million in North America. Obviously, Abrams remembers those days. In a way, Super 8 is as derivative and familiar as anything in theaters today, only the movies it’s copying are all over a quarter of a century old: Spielbergian fare like The Goonies, E.T., Gremlins and Close Encounters, with echoes of earlier and later films. Spielberg’s cinematic DNA is all over the film, from the 1970s suburban setting to the young heroes with troubled home lives, though what Spielberg himself may have contributed as producer and what is Abrams imitating the master is impossible to say.
Alas, one of the less attractive features of those old Spielbergian films, particularly The Goonies, is avidly echoed and even exaggerated here: the gratuitous profanity and crass language. Jesus’ name is thrown around a lot, and while there’s nothing here quite as coarse as Elliot’s infamous obscenity there’s a lot of potty language. Oh, and the graphic vomiting. I hadn’t missed that, either.
There are at least two ways in which Super 8 is very clearly an Abrams film. One is its coyness about its premise. Abrams loves secrets. Where Spielberg’s movies tell you what they’re about right from the start, Super 8 takes its time. Jaws begins underwater and kills off the shark’s first victim in the opening scene. E.T. opens with aliens running around in the forests of northern California, hiding from government agents. By contrast, nothing in the first act of Super 8 tells you what kind of movie you’re watching, except that it generally feels a lot like an early Spielberg film.
The other Abrams hallmark, alas, is a strong opening followed by mounting plot problems and a disappointing conclusion. I never watched “Lost,” but the frustration of Losties is a testament both to Abrams’ talent and his limitations. If “Lost” were no good, it wouldn’t matter that it was a mess. Even when Abrams is firing on all cylinders, as he is in Star Trek, it’s not hard to pull his work to pieces once you start thinking about it.
Super 8 works so well for an hour or so that it’s disappointing to watch it unravel in the third act and then fall apart completely at the climax. In retrospect, it’s a mess.
The title harkens back to a time when home movies were shot on 8 mm film, and young movie enthusiasts like Abrams and Spielberg borrowed their dad’s camera to experiment with making their own movies. In my case it was my grandfather’s camera; my sole directorial effort was an unfinished science-fiction film called Cyborg. It had a couple of neat effects, although there’s a reason I became a critic and not a director.
The young heroes of Super 8 are making a zombie movie. The mastermind is a heavyset boy named Charles (Riley Griffiths), but Abrams’ protagonist is a soulful kid named Joe Lamb (newcomer Joel Courtney), whose mother has just died in an industrial accident. Joe and his father (Kyle Chandler), a small-town deputy sheriff, aren’t close, and the tragedy seems to be driving them further apart rather than drawing them together.
Crucial to the film, and to the film within the film, is Alice (Elle Fanning), a natural leading lady who’s also old enough to drive, if not quite legally. Alice brings a level of feeling to Charles’s zombie movie out of all proportion to the rest of the production. Watching her utter her lines, her male colleagues are mesmerized. Actually, they’re pretty mesmerized by her even when she’s just standing around. Joe is the makeup guy, which means he has the thrilling privilege of touching Alice’s face.
The interactions among the kids, and the innocent attraction between Joe and Alice, is touchingly well done. Alas, domestic relationships—the heart of the Spielbergian films Abrams is copying—aren’t nearly as well handled. The death of Joe’s mother, his awkward relationship with his cop father, Alice’s even more dysfunctional relationship with her boozer father, the bad feeling between the two dads, revolving around the death of Joe’s mother: in a real Spielberg film, this is where the heart and soul of the movie would be. Here, it’s all perfunctory, without much more emotional weight than a scene from Charles’s zombie movie.
Abrams is a gifted storyteller, and he knows when to use suggestion and understatement, and when to clobber the audience. A detail as small as a sputtering car engine not only tells us something about a character’s socioeconomic status, but helps us put the pieces together as Abrams lays them out. He builds suspense from clues as quiet as missing dog notices on a bulletin board.
But Abrams overplays his hand. He piles up so many hints, and builds such suspense, that disappointment begins to feel inevitable. The tonal swings from the humorous character moments to the scary thriller stuff strain toward a triumphant cathartic finale that Abrams can’t deliver. Instead of anything even approximately satisfying, he offers nonsensical frenetic action, followed by a jaw-droppingly lame climax. (Spoiler warning.)
The whole third act is off-putting. As the town descends into a bona fide war zone, the boys dodge explosions and crashing rubble on a rescue mission that makes no sense, looking for someone they have every reason to believe is dead and no particular reason to think they can locate in any case. People are being killed—they know this; they’ve seen it. It’s just stupid to think that this person is alive and waiting to be found and rescued.
What finally happens when they come face to face with the source of all the nastiness, and how the whole crisis is abruptly resolved, is the icing of lameness on the stupid cake. It’s like Abrams wanted to make Jaws (or Jurassic Park) and E.T. at the same time. Scary predator or cute goblin: choose one.
Most inexcusable of all is the shallow treatment of the death of Joe’s mother, and his eventual rapprochement with his father. Joe’s mother is reduced in the film to a necklace with a locket that Joe carries everywhere, fingering it as if it were a rosary. At one point a soldier confiscates the necklace, and Joe later retrieves it from the soldier’s dead body (with none of the difficulty you’d expect from a boy groping a still-warm dead body).
Then, in the end, a gratuitous plot contrivance suggests that it’s time for Joe to give up the locket, to move on with his life. His mother has been dead for less than half a year. If my mother had died around the time I was filming Cyborg, I would want to kick this movie in the shins.
Content advisory: Intense action, violence and menace; some gross-out images including onscreen vomiting; recurring profanity, crass language and one obscenity; depictions of drug and alcohol abuse.
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Too bad. I was hoping this movie would be a return to (mostly) original summer fare.
“I never watched “Lost,” but the frustration of Losties is a testament both to Abrams’ talent and his limitations. If “Lost” were no good, it wouldn’t matter that it was a mess.”
Lost a mess!?! *Ba ba BAHM!* I doth protest vehemently against such libels. Show me the accusers or render yourself to the judgement of the smoke monster!
One geeky clarification: while Lost was originally led by Abrams, the show was ultimately the product of the imaginations of Damon Lindelof and Charlton Cuse. Thus, the (few) flaws or frustrations encountered by (some) fans in the fulfillment of Abrams’ (early) contributions might perhaps be laid at their feet rather than his. Just a thought. :)
“I never watched “Lost,” but the frustration of Losties is a testament both to Abrams’ talent and his limitations. If “Lost” were no good, it wouldn’t matter that it was a mess.”
Okay, this was my favorite line for the article because it is so true!! I was a huge fan of LOST, it was good. I was incredibly disappointed in the end.
I have also been a huge Star Trek fan forever, and thought Abrams’ new movie was fantastic. I have not felt the need to pick it apart.
I have not seen Super 8 and probably won’t until it’s on Netflix, and then we’ll see.
@ David B: Meet Julie. :)
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. And that’s all I have to say about that…
I’ll wait for the DVD. ;-)
[Spoiler warning.] I disagree with your interpretation of the third act. Joe’s loss, the chaos and desperation, and his longing for that gaze from his mother that assures him he still exists are what links him empathically to the creature, which is a very stirring homage to E.T. - only this time the alien creature does not have puppy dog eyes. It is menacing and vengeful, but the shared moment in the cave when it looks into Joe’s eyes and knows that here is a person who has suffered loss (and yearns for home, for that sense that all is once again right with the world) in the way that it has suffered- I think you were hasty to dismiss what was really going on behind the explosions. Something remarkable took place for Joe and it had little to do with the events raging round and more to do with who he was becoming and what he was letting go. It was a classic bildungsroman rendered artfully and humorously, with some nostalgia and cinematic references thrown in for good measure. I think Abrams should be very proud of this film, and I was surprised how much he accomplished with a movie of its genre.
[Spoiler warning.] I also disagree that it was stupid for Joe to look for Alice. He was acing on conviction, the same conviction that led him to disobey his father in pursuit of Alice, the same conviction that kept him true to his friends, that united him with the creature. It was the same conviction that led Elliott to save ET. It proved his mettle, it made him a man (a man very much like his father, a man of conviction who had lost sight of what was most important, but who came round in the end) And with that done, Joe could finally let go of the past. These extraordinary events were simply the backdrop for a very ordinary moment that has to take place in every boy’s life.
[Spoiler warning.] The source of all the nastiness was not the creature- it was the air force captain. The initial horror even up to the moments in the tunnel give way to empathy for the creature as seen through Joe’s eyes- Joe who feels loss as intensely as the creature does, Joe who would risk all and not let anything stand in his way. Ultimately Joe even becomes a hero to the creature, assuring it that it will make it home, and even lending a part of himself to make that happen. I think you should revisit this film when you’ve taken some peptobismol or sipped a nice cup of tea.
@ SWF: Thanks for your thoughtful comments (which I took the liberty of tagging with spoiler warnings for the sake of readers who haven’t yet seen the film). I’m happy to be disagreed with, and I hope you won’t be disappointed if I disagree with you right back, some time after I’ve been to Mass (and various other activities planned for today).
I will not even suggest that you revisit my review after when you’ve taken some peptobismol or sipped a nice cup of tea. (I highly recommend Maeda sen-cha (green tea)—the fukamushi reserve is my favorite—which I drink all day long, pretty much every day, including the day I screened Super 8.)
Ooh, no, I don’t like green tea—a cup of Lady Grey with some crystallized ginger would do much more nicely. I just think the charm of the movie was lost on you somehow, and I find that unfortunate because I don’t think it unraveled at all. Although, to be fair, upon revisiting your review it does seem that you enjoyed the moment when Alice reads her lines, and you described Courtney’s performance as ‘soulful’ - but that doesn’t seem to have won you over (I was smitten, if you hadn’t noticed). I’m still trying to figure out what you mean when you say that Abrams “overplays his hand. He piles up so many hints, and builds such suspense, that disappointment begins to feel inevitable. The tonal swings from the humorous character moments to the scary thriller stuff strain toward a triumphant cathartic finale that Abrams can’t deliver.” My jaw may not have dropped with catharsis at the climax, but neither did I find it lame. Were you expecting more from the monster? Because it wasn’t about him, it was about Joe.
@ SWP: I used to be a huge Earl Grey fan, which I took the same way Captain Picard did (hot, with nothing). What’s great about green tea is that I can drink it all day long, even on an empty stomach if I’m fasting, and it never sours my stomach.
And thanks for revisiting my review, and finding some points of contact in it. As for my revisiting Super 8, I’ll never deny that a second viewing of any film could offer fresh perspective on it. Most reviews by most critics are based on a single screening, which is far from ideal. Often critics have to review films without any meaningful interaction with other opinions, which some feel preserves the purity of their response, but I find that film criticism is a conversation and that good critics benefit from interaction with other points of view. (Bad critics are another story.)
Still, over time critics ought to hone their responses to be able to react to most films in a way that will stand the test of repeated viewing and cross-examination. In this case, I’m pretty confident that my take on Super 8 isn’t changing radically. (Of course I’ve been wrong before, but I think I’ve been right a lot more often.)
I don’t think Super 8 is without charm. I don’t think it’s really about Joe’s emotional journey. The charm is mostly connected to Abrams’ nostalgia for the films he’s imitating. Joe’s emotional journey is more a narrative trope than a locus of real creative energy. The feeling in E.T. flowed from Spielberg’s childhood experiences growing up in one-parent household in a suburban subdivision, abandoned by his father just like Elliot. The feeling in Super 8 flows from Abrams’s childhood experiences growing up watching Steven Spielberg films. The scenes involving Alice and her effect on the boys are sharply observed; the scenes involving Joe’s uneasy relationship with his father and their grief over the mother are perfunctory.
This may be a symptom of a larger issue with Abram’s work generally. Critics have complained, not without reason, that in Star Trek Abrams retroactively destroyed the entire Vulcan homeworld, including Spock’s mother, just to make Spock cry. Looking back, I see that I complained in my Mission: Impossible III review that Abrams ratchets up the stakes past the capacity of the material to bear it—and that was basically my first encounter with the guy.
In retrospect—and this is occurring to me for the first time—it really seems to me that none of these movies really seems to appreciate the full weight of the heart-wrenching scenarios they propose. Abrams drops these scenarios into his work but doesn’t seem to have anything to say about them or know how to integrate these themes into the overall shape of his narratives. The big climactic scene at the end—“Sometimes bad things happen”—I’m sorry, it’s just lame. Lame for Joe, not just for the creature.
[Spoiler warning.] So, the pickup truck drives head-on into the train, causing the most over-the-top CGI train derailment in motion picture history—and the driver of the truck survives? Really? And the kids find him, and he’s their science teacher? And he’s got secret classified documentation that the government is trying to recover, and the kids just happen to know where it is, because it’s where he stashed their confiscated contraband? And he warns them that if they talk about the crash to anyone, the Air Force will kill them and their parents? It’s come to that? And the alien stalks around town collecting scrap metal, but it takes the engines out of cars but not the car bodies? Why, exactly? And it snatches human beings off the streets so that it can ... hang them upside down in its lair and not kill them? Or was he eating them after all? Is he benevolent or not? Where was his instant telepathic mind-melding then? And Joe was somehow convinced that the alien hadn’t killed Alice why? Even though he’s seen people killed right in front of his eyes? Enough to risk all their lives running through a war zone like commandos? And the military somehow kept this alien under wraps since the 1950s, but now he’s out and we don’t have a single weapon that can touch him? And ... and ... and ...
P.S. Here’s another way of looking at it. I’ve said that Super 8 is more about Abrams’ affection for Spielberg’s movies than about Abrams’ own childhood experiences. That’s not a criticism in itself. One of Spielberg’s own movies, and one of my favorite movies of all time, could be described in exactly the same sort of way: Raiders of the Lost Ark. That’s why the characters in Raiders are paper-thin, just like those in Super 8. I’m not saying that Indy and Marion aren’t far more vivid and memorable than anyone in Super 8, but they’re not much more rounded as characters—which, again, is not a problem in itself.
The problem arises because Super 8 drops E.T.-level heart-wrenching themes onto the shoulders of Raiders-level paper-thin characters. It doesn’t work. The characters and relationships in Super 8 won’t sustain E.T.-level angst. The same is true of Indy and Marion, which is why dropping child slavery into an Indiana Jones adventure in Temple of Doom was such a misguided idea. Don’t ask us to feel angst in what is basically a glorified serial adventure flick. Super 8 doesn’t make exactly the same mistake, but it’s a mistake of the same sort.
“Where Spielberg’s movies tell you what they’re about right from the start, Super 8 takes its time.”
Interesting observation.
I found the 3rd act problematic as well, but for slightly different reasons. My chief beef was that the childrens’ actions were not necessary to driving away the alien. Based on the timeline, the alien had it’s ship pretty much ready to go. If they’d not interfered with the alien’s nest, they probably would have saved a few lives, the alien would have just left. The alien didn’t need the kids help in any way. What I thought was going to happen was that the kids would have had to use “the language of film” to communicate with the alien non-verbally, to help it understand that they weren’t like the military and wanted to help the alien complete it’s ship, etc.
While you’re entitled to your own opinion and have gone about defending it, I just couldn’t disagree more. The movie falls apart? It’s a mess? You accuse Abrams of overplaying his hand, but you’re doing just that with insults like those.
The ending is a validation of everything that came before. The alien was a dark shadow of Joe, wanting to move on but not being able to. The ending scenes are totally necessary to finish the story, and Joe’s emotional arc hangs in the balance until he can overcome that final hurdle.
You can knock small things—yes, four months is too short a grief period ... yes, some directorial choices are a bit too on-the-nose ... yes, for the love of God, enough with the lens flares—but the core of this story is rock solid. You get heart, thrills and laughs.
Then you try to attribute the disappointment of Lost to Abrams when in reality he had essentially nothing to do with that show after season 1. And pulling apart Star Trek? Good luck with that.
@ Dirk: Far from insulting, “overplaying his hand” was a straightforward description.
Good luck pulling Star Trek apart? Um, are you aware of just how thoroughly the fans have pulled it to pieces? Here are a few relevant thoughts, just from my friends at A&F: one two three.
More Star Trek plot holes. And even more. (Disclaimer: Some plot holes may overlap.)
Some veeery nit-picky anachronism problems in Super 8.
@Steven
I read your links. All I’m reading here is people whining about about how it was different from the original TV show or the typical sky-is-falling, my-shoe’s-untied-therefore-I-have-cancer alarmism. It holds no weight. You could nitpick E.T., The Godfather, Citizen Kane, The Mona Lisa and Lincoln’s presidency all you want. All it proves is that if you want to see something, you can find the tiniest shreds of BS to make it appear so. Just out of curiosity—is this JJ Abrams-specific? Do you jump up and down when Scorsese’s shots don’t match (happens all the time in Goodfellas)? Are you offended by the poorly choreographed fight scene in the first Godfather?
If you want to focus on highly debatable, completely inconsequential details instead of looking at the big picture, be my guest. It doesn’t make Star Trek any worse and only strengthens its case. I mean, thousands of banded-together people bent on debunking the movie can’t muster a “plot hole” that even registers as a major part of the experience. What does that tell you?
You’re thinking about movies the wrong way—it’s not a game of “gotcha” where you go, “See? I’m smarter than them!” You’re completely missing the point of entertainment, art and perhaps life, and I encourage you to honestly re-examine your choices. Now, You might be thinking, “No, but I’m a critic. That’s my job!” You’re wrong. Your job is to help sell movies.
[** spoiler alert! **] While I disagree with Dirk that what you said was an insult to Abrams, because it’s appropriate for a critic to be, um, critical, one thing Dirk said stood out as echoing my thoughts exactly: “The alien was a dark shadow of Joe, wanting to move on but not being able to.” I don’t believe this was a movie about a train wreck or a man-eating alien. It was a story about a boy who has lost his mother (the one person that made him feel anchored), who needs his father (who is also coming to terms with that loss and the new responsibility towards his son), and who is coming-of-age while coming to terms with that loss. If you came to the film seeking an action scifi thriller, then you would indeed come away disappointed. Fortunately, I listened to Abrams’ interview on NPR, and I watched Chandler’s interview with Letterman, and I came to the film eager to see how that story- the bildungsroman- would play out, and I came away very satisfied and even a little verclempt. Key scenes took place that I did not deem perfunctory, esp. when the father and son have their spat and the dad says there are all those people out there depending on him—that was the moment that gave away what this movie was really about, and the third act simply became window dressing for something less fictitious and a very true story to which all boys can relate. Bombs exploding around you and someone’s fate hanging in the balance is the kind of heroic drama that we all wished could play out in our lives (and in our imaginations at that age they often do), but for most of us those realities play out on a stage much less ordinary, but no less dramatic, no less meaningful, no less essential to our growing up and becoming men. Sure, the timeline is abrupt, but the scifi sequences are metaphor anyway. Joe was archetypal, and his story is not only all of our stories, it was most especially Spielberg’s and Abrams’ story. The combination of cinematic thrill with nostalgic references was a touching homage and well worth the discovery. I could have written this off as another superhero flick for the summer, and I’m so glad I did not (I’m so glad I heard those interviews beforehand that piqued my interest), because it was so much better than one more summer action movie. Plus, any movie in which the father gets to be the big hero gets an A+ in my book, in this day and age when dads get such a bad rap on TV and in the culture at large. It was the opening question of the film—will the dad be able to step up and fill the shoes the mother left behind? Joe ultimately got the embrace he needed. If that’s not something to cheer about, I don’t know what else is.
Whoa, Dirk!
You make a good point- nitpickers tend not to enjoy watching movies- but could you make it with a little more cordiality? Sheesh!
Did anyone else enjoy the zombie movie that rolled during the credits? That was genius! I laughed my head off.
“I’ve said that Super 8 is more about Abrams’ affection for Spielberg’s movies than about Abrams’ own childhood experiences.” That’s not what Abrams said in his NPR interview. He also made amateur films in his backyard, just like Spielberg, his hero. Given that you did too, I’m really surprised at the harshness of your reaction. Knowing all that beforehand made the characters even more endearing to me, not less.
Replies to @ SWP and @ Dirk.
SWP, thanks, I appreciate your comments and the tone you’ve brought to the discussion. To clarify, when I said that Super 8 is “more about Abrams’ affection for Spielberg’s movies than about Abrams’ own childhood experiences,” I was referring specifically to the troubled family dynamic. I know (and acknowledged in my review) that Abrams shares with Spielberg (and me!) that childhood experience of backyard 8 mm moviemaking. That is one of the aspects of the film that I think works the best, along with the budding attraction between Joe and Alice. That’s where I sense Abrams’ personal investment in the material. It’s when the story turns to awkward fathers and dead mothers that I don’t think Abrams’ heart is in it, that he’s on Spielbergian autopilot.
Speaking of which, I forgot to mention: In Star Trek, not only does Abrams wipe out an entire planet and all its inhabitants—a planet with iconic status in the Trek universe—for very dubious dramatic reasons, he also wipes out the entire graduating Starfleet class—and instead of this being a traumatic, shocking catastrophe, and there’s never any acknowledgement of that. No grieving, no reflection on the tragedy, nothing. It’s like it never happened. To quote my friend Peter Chattaway:
And that’s not a minor nitpick—Dirk! That’s a glaring failure to deal with the emotional and human realities of the dramatic material. As I wrote in response to Peter’s comments at A&F:
Again, if someone wants to dismiss all this as inconsequential nit-picking, I can only reply that I can’t see that they want to think critically, Christianly or for that matter humanly about movies at all. I think when a movie wipes out an entire planet and an entire graduating class and there is an almost total absence of grief or acknowledgement (except for some erratic behavior from Spock and an almost flip comment about being an “endangered species”), that is exactly the sort of thing that Christian critics should be pointing out.
Dirk: You say “You could nitpick E.T., The Godfather, Citizen Kane, The Mona Lisa and Lincoln’s presidency all you want.” You know, I don’t disagree, in principle. That’s why, the significant and real issues above notwithstanding, I really dig Abrams’ Star Trek. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t distinguish between films that generally stand up to scrutiny and films that don’t, or between films that deal humanely with their subject matter and ones that don’t.
It’s worth noting that more we do think critically, Christianly and humanly about films, the more we will find that while at times we may have reservations about some films that others don’t share (and we may be accused of nitpicking), by the same token we will gain a richer and deeper appreciation of the true beauties and glories of excellent films that others won’t fully share. It’s like learning about wine. Does it mean that you’ll be aware of the flaws in some cheap plonk that others guzzle down without noticing? Maybe. But it also means that you get more out of the good stuff than the guzzlers do. A lot more.
P.S. Dirk, thanks for telling me your idea about what my job is. It’s nice to be clear how completely we disagree.
I can’t speak to the other movies being discussed, and I don’t want to prolong the discussion indefinitely (I have enjoyed reflecting on the movie, but I can’t keep checking back for much longer). I do have one more observation to share. You have perceived as a general criticism of Abrams’ movies some “glaring failure[s] to deal with the emotional and human realities of the dramatic material.” I would submit that the monster, the mess, the mystery (all of the action/thriller scenes) were HOW Abrams dealt with the emotional reality of the characters in this movie. The scenes and moments that you describe as perfunctory were not ‘the meat’ of the movie for a reason, because what was going on in the background conveys what was going on with the characters involved, i.e. the desperation of the monster to get home (as well as some of its anger) reflects Joe’s search for the embrace of his mother that was not being fulfilled by his father until the end (and which was also fulfilled in a different way by Alice), as well as some of the anger, confusion, and loss of the dads. It might be giving Abrams too much credit to say that the monster was an altar-Id of Joe, yet something along those lines was clearly conveyed when I watched it. I didn’t experience disjointedness; rather, the third act was revelatory of a deeper plotline. Thank you for reviewing films as well as you do. I have relied on you many times before watching many movies.
Come to think of it, the anger/loss/confusion was also reflected in Charles’ feelings towards Joe. So there was more going on than met the eye in this film. Hence I have come away with admiration for Abrams, not aghast at his stupidity.
@ SWP: Thanks again for your thoughtful contribution. There’s nothing like countervailing points of view to illuminate the issue from all angles. You’ve obliged me to express my take more clearly and strongly than I would have done otherwise, and hopefully I’ve done the same for you.
Beyond that, I’m happy to let your closing statement stand without further cross-examination or closing statement of my own, except to say that I’m certainly not aghast at Abrams’ stupidity. He’s clearly a bright, creative, talented guy. At present, my take is that while he does need to work harder on plot consistency, his main weakness as a storyteller is not an intellectual one, but an emotional one.
I have to disagree with you on this one. While profanity was carried to some excess, the actual story gripes just didn’t seem to fit to the movie I saw. It’s far from perfect, and like many movies, there was a good share of contrivance (ie the train derailment). But I think the movie was definitely well done. I didn’t really feel that the end was as big a failure as some do.
I think the characters were pretty deep, especially as summer blockbusters go. I think the story just worked and I appreciated it for what it was. I do feel there is some unwarranted harshness towards the plot of the film. I didn’t really see much that didn’t make sense in this film that isn’t really present in any kind of similar movie.
It is a fair criticism to note the excessive language. But aside from that, I don’t really have any complaints of the film. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than several movies of late, not that I am motivated to get out to the theater often.
(Side note: As a huge Lostie, I loved the series from start ‘til the last frame. Same goes for Super 8. Both have been accused of a lot but at the end of the day, I enjoyed both for what they were.) I know a lot of people come away from movies with different things, but considering the movie I saw, I am definitely surprised at some of the backlash to Super 8.
SWP: “Did anyone else enjoy the zombie movie that rolled during the credits? That was genius! I laughed my head off.”
YES ... it probably bumped the film up from a 4 to a 5 for me (I grade on a 10-point scale). It actually had some heart and its obvious technical inadequacies retained the charm of innocence and freshness. At the same time, it’s not a good sign when the film that plays during the credits is better than the one that plays before it.
SPOILERIFICNESS BEGINS
“‘The alien was a dark shadow of Joe, wanting to move on but not being able to.’ I don’t believe this was a movie about a train wreck or a man-eating alien. It was a story about a boy who has lost his mother ... who needs his father ... and who is coming-of-age while coming to terms with that loss.”
Except that there is too much train wrecking and man-eating alien and army splosions and conspiracy unravelings if that is what SUPER 8 is about. Particularly since
(1) the alien is a wholly-malevolent presence, who kills human beings in front of the kid’s eyes, until The Alien Becomes Nice Because The Child Pleads bit, a scene so ridiculous (and not just in that detail) that I threw an unpopped kernel at the screen. This is Monster Movie material until the film suddenly decides not to be for no dramatic reason (though I can think of some uncharitable thematic ones). If the alien is meant to be a sort of Shadow Joe, then you have him hide or befriend the kid, like ET who also wants to go home. You don’t make a snarling monster and give him a lair with people strung up ready to eat like Bluebeard.
(2) the family thread never comes together with the monster movie material in a convincingly dramatic way. Yes, the gesture with the locket, but that’s an unearned coda contrivance at best. Once the father and the son are separated and the father begins to suspect The Military Industrial Complex Is Evil, he becomes completely dispensable to the kid’s story. The second half of SUPER 8 really is two separate movies that share a setting and not much else. Oh ... and I also couldn’t stand the scene of the two fathers driving together, not only because of the dramatic contrivance, but the emotional contrivance. Could the cop really forgive the alkie so suddenly, so easily, based on the words said here? It was all I could do not to yell at the screen “but you can’t have my Bud Light.”
SPOILERIFICNESS ENDS
All that said, I don’t want to leave the impression I did not find much to like—the movie-making project, the interaction among the kids and the performances, especially the supernaturally gifted Elle Fanning (first SOMEWHERE, now this ... she’s the Drew Barrymore of the 10s; hopefully without the 20s). Even though Abrams overdid it, those blue light sheens were lovely and ghostly at the same time.
@ Victor Morton:
Spot. On. Along with the rest of your comments.
Well, I liked it. I went in with no preconceived notions, and I wasn’t disappointed. Yeah, there was cardboard and paper characters all around, and maybe if Abrams kept more in the film (it came in under 2 hours), there might have been a bit more character development - like Joe’s dad, Alice’s dad, etc.
No sex and no nudity - I can’t recall any innuendo wnatsoever - the portrayal of the budding relationship between Joe and Alice was rather innocent and a nice change of pace.
Maybe the sequel will show the alien returning home where he tries to explain to his wife why he was gone for 21 years, only to find that she married someone else, and he has to cope with the pain and the separation and the angst, so he returns to Earth to take his frustrations out on the planet and destroy all signs of sentient life, only to have a change of heart and help the town residents rebuild using those little cubes.
Or maybe not.
@ LarryD: We agree on one thing: The budding relationship of Joe and Alice was one of the best things in the film.
I’d be real surprised if there was a sequel.
I’d be real surprised if there was a sequel.
Me too, especially if he goes with my idea…
Sounds like it could be a great movie though, LarryD. Come to think of it, I’d like to see that movie as made by the kids in this one.
Not every movie should have a sequel, especially the really good ones like this. (*wink) I’d be surprised if there was a sequel too, cause this movie didn’t call for it. I was happy with what they gave me. I’m glad to see the movie proving itself profitable too. For any flaws it may have, I think the movie’s found a place in the hearts of many.
Everyone brings their own emotional baggage to a film, and in my case this included memories of losing my Dad when I was 12, as well as remembering how at 13 years old I had a big crush on one of the most popular girls in school — while realizing how hopeless my situation was when I discovered so did most of the other boys in my grade (and other grades besides), including my two best friends, one of whom was also an amateur filmmaker. I decided to see this movie with my 11-year old son, and although I was concerned about the coarse language in some parts, overall I’m glad I got to see it with him, because he’s going through some of the same emotional transitions as Joe (i.e. a budding attraction to a slightly older girl in his school). Afterwards in the car, as we discussed the emotional complications of Charles-Alice-Joe, my son remarked on how similar this was to the George-Molly-Peter situation in Peter and the Shadow Thieves (one his favourite books). For myself, the sight of the yellow film boxes and the Super 8 cameras brought back so many memories, my mind is still reeling.
Wow! I love all these comments, esp after reading such an amazingly smart guy’s assessment.(Stephen, I am a BIG fan even tho we do not have the same “taste” in movies. I can ALWAYS count on you giving a thoughtful review, and I trust your fatherly judgment….)So, here’s my question to anyone who cares to respond: do I take my 12 1/2 yr old very nice boy to this or not? He goes to daily Mass, wears his scapular with devotion, fasts (not from food) weekly for the salvation of his 18 yr old wayward sister, goes to public school, plays basketball, is a generally crazy “all boy” boy even tho the above religious notations may make him sound like a pious paper-thin kid. He’s a young 12 year old in that he is still somewhat innocent- well, as much as you can be living in a small town in NJ with regular sinful people as parents! His neighbor friends will all be seeing this- do I take him and talk about it, or is this a “we won’t be seeing This Movie” flick? Is the crude speech sexual in content? I’m pretty liberal when it comes to historical violence (he loves The Patriot and has seen Braveheart with a couple scenes fast forwarded)but don’t like sexual content. I was Very Disappointed in the latest Pirates - way too sexy for pre-teen boys.
so all you MEN esp- what do you advise?
@ Debby: Fans who don’t share my taste in movies are my favorite kind! Thanks so much.
There’s nothing really sexual in Super 8. A few crude anatomical terms, references to characters being “hot,” and a girl wearing a midriff-baring top and short shorts. That’s about it. As suggested above, the romantic element between the hero and heroine is sweetly innocent. (In a scene I much like, Joe doesn’t quite get a first kiss, but what he does get is surely the next best thing.)
My big caveat about your very nice 12-year-old boy with this film would be the fairly heavy profanity (in the literal sense of misusing the names of God and Jesus; one website counted nearly 30 instances). I’m not overly sensitive on this point (flawed characters use bad language) but in this case there’s just too much of it, for no good reason.
Sadly, there’s not a lot out there right now for a nice 12-year-old boy. I’m afraid your best bet for now might be Thor, which is okay, not great by any means. Cars 2 is coming this weekend, but (cat out of the bag) that’s not great either.
Thanks, Steven! We saw “Thor” and liked it a lot. My family loves the comic character movies, not my personal favs, but I love going to the movies with them. We recently re-watched “True Grit” which we had seen in the theater thanks to your January review. I have to go read your take on X-Men and the other kid/family movies and see what else is decent. Hopefully there’s something out there…..TY!
(This is a private note to you: A happy belated Father’s Day to you. I don’t want to “gush” at you or anything, but have your wife hug you for me! I am so impressed with your wide-lens grasp of literature, history, Catholic teaching, and love of art! Heck, you seem like a “home schooled” man (hahaha)rater than a guy from NJ. Your mom and wife must be so proud of the man you are. I love reading your reviews and other than my daily visit to thecatholicthing.org, your work is often the only enjoyable reading I get to partake of…...everything else is so serious or just plain disheartening. I love your constant classic lit references and the mastery of the CCC that generously seasons your work. I’m sure it comes from the human being you are and are becoming. God continue to bless your whole heart and all in it. Keep up the great work of living and loving God and the rest of the people He sends your way. We all need you!)
My daughter and I saw “Super 8” on Father’s Day. (She persuaded me to go because she and a number of other students from Franciscan University of Steubenville had small crowd parts in the film, which was largely shot in the nearby hamlet of Weirton, WV.) I found it a strangely appropriate Father’s Day film because it was one of the few Spielbergian movies where the fathers were not only present buit were portrayed as thoughtful, protective and courageous characters, even when they were displaying their flaws. In a number of scenes (where Alice is being pursued by her angry father, and when Joe’s dad is forbidding his son to see Alice) you think you’re being led to the same tired old place, only to be surprised by the humanity and decency of the dads. For that alone, I’ve got to rate this film pretty high.
Steve—after reading through most of these comments (and having seen the movie, of course), and realizing that I’m late to the party, I just wanted to clear up a couple things that I think you’ve overlooked.
SPOILERS A’COMIN
First, and easiest to clear, is the beef you have about the boys going to look for Alice. The boys don’t have any reason to assume she’s dead. The only people they know the alien killed are the same soldier (and others working with him) that the boys know imprisoned and tortured the alien in the past. They saw all that in the film in the science teacher’s locker. Also, by the time they see the alien kill those soldiers, they’re already on the mission to find Alice! They left the shelter with the stoner film developer to find her, and it was only after they got to the school and watched the film that they were put on the bus where the killings happen. Also remember that, as far as we know, the boys don’t know what happened to the sheriff and the store clerk and the line worker. In fact, since the bodies are missing, they have every reason to believe the creature IS kidnapping people.
In that light, going after Alice, even though Joe and the others must know it’s POSSIBLE she’s dead, is heroic and not stupid.
Secondly, I think you misunderstand the nature of the alien, and perhaps his motives. The alien’s psychic transferal is two-way, and we have no indication that it’s something the creature does on purpose. I assumed it happened every time it touched someone, whether he wanted to or not. So at the moment the alien grabs Joe, they both understand each other perfectly. Imagine how you would treat someone differently if there were no secrets or doubts, nor any chance of misunderstanding. It would be kind of like “instant marriage”, but with even greater (and more frightening) clarity. It doesn’t surprise me at all emotionally that the alien turns more or less on a dime because it sees a kindred spirit amongst its enemies, and knows for certain that, not only are some humans good, but that they are actually capable of empathy and understanding.
But that being said, the alien DIDN’T turn on a dime. It never wanted anything but to get home (and it stole those engines to help it power a giant magnet, so it could pull in all those white bumpy cubes that comprise its ship; car bodies wouldn’t have helped with that task). And yes, it eats people—but this is the part where we say “it’s a giant spider alien; what do you expect?” The ability to empathize with humanity doesn’t automatically equate with the same sense of morality. Eating sapient beings is horrifying and, well, alien. But whereas with a human being it would be profoundly evil, it seems more like a matter of course for an intelligent arachnid.
Finally, what did they boys accomplish, other than rescuing Alice? Well, they rescued Alice. The creature was about to eat her when it wasn’t distracted by Cary’s explosives. Sure it’s a typical movie “nick of time” rescue, but that’s easy to forgive. And remember that, from a character perspective, the boys don’t WANT to do anything but rescue Alice! So, mission accomplished.
Finally, it’s not also hard to imagine another benefit to Joe’s contact with the creature—a being with that much technology probably has the ability to come back with an armada and swat us all into oblivion. So maybe now it won’t. There’s no indication that Abrams wanted us to think anything like this, but it’s certainly within the thematic realm he established to think that “true understanding between those who are different” is a part of his thought process. Just saying.
Anyway, thanks for the great, thoughtful review. You and I are on the same page about films probably 90% of the time, and even when I disagree with your final assessment I almost always agree with how you got there.
Thanks for . . . ahem . . . selling us the movies!
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