Super 8 Reviewed (Fennecritic Film Review)
Jaspian the Fennecritic Presents...
Super 8
Possibly the dumbest-titled movie of the year, Super-8 is a collaboration effort between the old school classic director Steven Spielberg and the up-and-already-here director JJ Abrams who’s affinity for giant monster movies seems to rival my affinity for horses. The name of the movie comes from the fact that the main characters in the film (all adolescent kids) are making a zombie movie. The film is named (presumably) after super-8 film, which is an 8mm quick-exposure film that was used by amateur filmmakers back in the day because it was cheap. This is never mentioned in the movie “Super-8”. I don’t even think they mentioned that its Super-8 film or even 8mm (although you can kinda guess when they play back a reel, since it looks very skinny). In a comic-book-hero film summer, calling a film “Super-8” when most people have no clue what that is, is just moronic, especially when movie-making is mostly irrelevant to the story as a whole.
Anyway - I wanted to see Super-8. I’m not a big fan of JJ Abrams... for the most part, I’ve disliked everything he’s touched (with the exception of the Star Trek remake...) but even so he seems to draw me in with everything he does, and the Super-8 trailer really got me interested... possibly for the complete lack of explanation, and fancy visuals... its like a mystery.
And the film itself is a bit like a mystery. A train crashes in a sleepy little town, weird white cube artifacts are found near the site. The airforce comes in and gets all heavy-handed around the area. And townsfolk begin to disappear. Just leave it to 5 adolescents to save the day! (But this is not an adolescent movie. Its definitely directed at adults).
SO! What did I think of it? Well... topics aside, JJ Abrams is a fantastic director. He has a talent for taking small budgets and making them seem big, and that translates to bigger budgets as well it seems. I think the hallmark of a really great director isn’t just the filming and the shots and angles, but … weirdly enough... the acting. Good directors make bad actors good. See: Jason Statham in Guy Richie movies. Now see him in movies that aren’t Guy Richie movies (except Crank series... I like that director too). And the acting in this movie is fantastic. Now... the reason why I credit the acting to the director in Super-8 is because kids usually can’t act. But in this movie... they sure can! That’s not to say a kid can’t be a good actor, but they’re fairly uncommon, and in this film there’s 5 or 6 under-20 stellar performances. Even if all these kids are that good, the director likely chose them in the auditions. But in addition to that, the shots are all well-planned and fantastic. There’s a good sense of suspense and the film is mostly believable despite its contents. The special effects are AMAZING especially the train crash, which rivals with Know1ng’s plane crash as possibly the best transit disaster in movie history. One thing that bugs me though is Steven Spielberg.... you could tell he got his grubby ol’style mitts on the film by his signature boner for blue lens flare. FUCKING STOP WITH THE BLUE LENS FLARE STEVE. My movie buddy suggested that perhaps... because the film is called “Super-8”, which is an old analog film standard, perhaps the film was shot on older-style cameras and on regular film. This could be the case, but the train crash probably had a lot of CG, which means that a lot of that blue flare (I would suspect) was intentionally added post-process even if they did use real film. Besides... this seems to happen in a lot of Spielberg movies. Unless Steve is just incompetent with his lighting rigs, which could also be the case. Anyway!
Great acting, great directing, great special effects, great pacing, great dialog... unfortunately the a content of the film is not great. There are a lot of plot holes, and the audience is left with more questions than answers. (Sound familiar JJ? LOST?) It seems like a waste to have such great potential wasted on a mediocre story... not to give too much of it away.
I do have to give Super-8 two ears perked, but I am not omnominating it for the Fennec’s Choice Awards. If you decide to see it - see it however you like. But there is a fantastic train wreck that goes on and on and on that might be lessened on the home theater.
Anyway - thanks for reading!
-jaspy