{"id":1526,"date":"2011-06-09T17:59:48","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T00:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1526"},"modified":"2011-06-10T06:04:16","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T13:04:16","slug":"review-super-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1526","title":{"rendered":"Review: SUPER 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Part \u201cThe Goonies\u201d part \u201cWar of the Worlds,\u201d J. J. Abrams\u2019 Steven Spielberg produced monster movie, \u201cSuper 8,\u201d is entertaining stuff. However, it can\u2019t live up to its wonderful set-up. And given the colorful adult skewing language and intense and sometimes violent scenes, it might be too much for the littlest viewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper 8\u201d opens with an ominous sign, literally, a sign in a factory designating the number of days since the last plant accident. From somewhere over 700 days, the sign is changed to 1. We learn that Joe Lamb\u2019s (Joel Courtney) mother has been killed while working on the assembly line. Joe\u2019s father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff\u2019s deputy, doesn\u2019t cope very well with the loss. Months pass and Joe and his best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) have bonded around their love of movies. Charles is a budding Spielberg and Joe is his talented make-up and special effects assistant. Along with their enthusiastic friends, they being the process of making a movie. It\u2019s a zombie detective film and Charles isn\u2019t pleased with what he calls the \u201cproduction value\u201d that they\u2019ve been getting. He also wants to add a love interest to the story. And just by luck a pretty girl named Alice (Elle Fanning) volunteers to appear in the movie.<\/p>\n

The story unfolds very much like a film made in the late 1970s or early 1980s with a particular nod to \u201cET\u201d and \u201cClose Encounters of the Third Kind.\u201d Writer\/director J. J. Abrams had to have worked closely with his producer Spielberg because the touch of the great master director is felt throughout. <\/p>\n

The moment that the kids in \u201cSuper 8\u201d sneak out at night to shoot a scene for their movie, the action really takes off. It helps that every character is so finely cut and developed. Led by a terrific performance by Elle Fanning (Dakota\u2019s very talented younger sister), the script makes us care about everyone. Like \u201cET,\u201d \u201cSuper 8\u201d perfectly captures the speech patterns of youngsters in the 1980s–the kids clumsily use expletives in innocent tones. The setting feels very authentic and real.<\/p>\n

It against this backdrop that a fantastic monster movie is placed. While shooting that scene at night, the kids get caught up in an enormous train derailment. After the smoke clears, something scary escapes from a damaged railroad car. And, as luck would have it, the Super 8 film camera they\u2019re using captures the whole thing. In a matter of hours, their little town is overrun by the military mysteriously searching for something. The Air Force officer in charge is the vicious Nelec (Noah Emmerich from \u201cThe Truman Show\u201d). And when the town\u2019s sheriff disappears, Joe\u2019s father takes over.<\/p>\n

What happens next will remind viewers of \u201cET\u201d and scenes from \u201cClose Encounters.\u201d And the homage paid to those films really works. Of course, having Spielberg on as a producer can\u2019t hurt, but J. J. Abrams demonstrates a very steady hand, especially early on when the dramatic portions of the story are developed. And it is because the pathos is so thick and credible that the fantastic elements become so intense and scary. This makes \u201cSuper 8\u201d very entertaining for teen and older viewers but young ones will be frightened. The monster in this movie isn\u2019t ET or something friendly and merchandisable as a cuddly stuffed animal. And while this edge will somewhat limit the potential breadth of the audience, it demonstrates the main difference between the then and the now.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, science fiction films seeking to attract a wide audience tended to stay away from graphic depictions of realistic violence. There was more going in inside the characters heads in films like \u201cET\u201d and \u201cClose Encounters\u201d than action and violence shown on screen. And these days given the evolution of special effects and computer generated animation, as well as audience tastes crafted by realistic video games, the approach is to show more and to use all the wonderful toys that are available to filmmakers. This means that instead of intellectual action, we\u2019re treated to explosions and graphic violence. Of course, this can be smart as \u201cSuper 8\u201d shows us. But the film\u2019s big action conclusion can\u2019t hold a candle to the explosive and gripping emotions that mark the movie\u2019s excellent first half. And that\u2019s okay, \u201cSuper 8\u201d isn\u2019t \u201cET,\u201d it doesn\u2019t aspire to be the next classic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper 8\u201d may fall short of the films that inspired it, but it\u2019s still one of the more entertaining monster movies of recent vintage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Jonathan says it’s no classic, he admits that it is fine entertainment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}