Super 8 (J. J. Abrams, 2011): USA

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.  Viewed at Camino Real Cinema, Goleta, CA.

  J. J. Abrams pays homage to Spielberg and the late 1970’s with  Super 8, a sci-fi flick involving a group of friends bent on filming their own zombie pic.

Trouble begins when this particular group of kids sneak out in a parent’s jacked car, in order to stage a scene near the railroad tracks.  As filming begins, Joe (Joel Courtney), Alice (Elle Fanning), and the other pre-pubescents witness a pick-up truck in a head-on collision with a freight train, that derails from the track.  They manage to avoid the catastrophe but leave the camera running on the tri-pod, which eventually gets damaged from the accident.

Follow closely, because in the next scene the driver of the pick-up truck is a teacher from their local school, who miraculously survives the head-on collision save for a few minor cuts, and is coherent enough to mumble out a few useless clues pertaining to the cargo aboard the train.

With debris covering every inch of the wreckage site, except for the path the car must take in order to escape quickly – the teens escape quickly, thus avoiding discovery by a military clean up crew. 

Meanwhile, Joe is motherless and Alice’s father is a drunk driver, and there’s an obvious connection between the two, with dots easily connected within the first few minutes of the film.  Love blossoms between Joe and Alice as they sit and watch a  super 8 film of younger Joe with his mother, in the midst of Star Wars and Space Shuttle posters, and Rock Em Sock Em Robots – takes place in the ’70’s, we get it.

With a title like Super 8, one would expect that the film within the film would be tied in somehow, and it is but uselessly, not enough to justify the title of the film.  It is in fact downright disappointing that the kids’ film is not incorporated more into the plot line or the outcome.  Periodically we are reminded of the time frame with zoom-ins on retro items such as a Walkman playing Blondie, conveniently explained in the dialogue for the audience, which was very annoying – not sure if Abrams did this for the pre 70’s or post 70’s audience members.

There are a few strange occurrences, such as neighborhood dogs go missing, along with electronic appliances, and themes of building and repairing of models, spaceships, and ultimately relationships – but it’s all fluff, neither solid nor deep.  As in many a Spielberg film, we have the usual potty-mouth kids, who’s parents don’t fully appreciate them, as well as the popular connection between alien and kid, which reminds us of that beloved summer blockbuster film of 1982.

The problem is, there’s a little bit of everything and not enough of one thing to make a connection.  The acting is acceptable, but the writing is convenient and lazy, with predictable dialogue.  Case in point:  woman gives description of missing person to cop, saying “she was wearing rollers, do you know what rollers are?”  Later that missing person appears on-screen wearing rollers, in order for us viewers to grasp the concept of rollers, or to LOL.  The redeeming qualities, if any, are the diegetic and non-diegetic tunes of Blondie and ELO – but you can download those from the internet.

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Published:
07.06.11 / 1pm
Category:
Films