Super 8Memories of childhood summer vacations are filled with projects with friends, riding around the suburbs on bicycles, and other things; few involve an alien menace rampaging through the night. Set in the small town of Lillian, Ohio in 1979, Super 8 is a science fiction monster movie that follows a group of kids making their own amateur monster movie on a "Super 8" camera, and inadvertently getting pulled into a government conspiracy involving an alien and the subsequent cover-up. Amid the science fiction backdrop, Super 8 explores themes of grief and resentment, as innocence and resolve are tested.
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Super 8 is a clear homage to an era of filmmaking from the late Seventies and early Eighties, largely the works of Steven Spielberg; the film is co-produced by Spielberg and his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Written, directed, and also co-produced by J. J. Abrams, Super 8 is tonally and visually consistent with these films from a generation prior, with its most obvious inspiration being Close Encounters of the Third Kind; its influence is felt in the time in which the movie is set (1979), but also in the place--a small town that is suddenly bombarded with supernatural mysteries, strange occurrences, and the inevitable incursion of the military to contain it all. Super 8 introduces the monster/alien after an explosive train wreck occurs on the outskirts of town, witnessed by the kids shooting a scene for their movie. Like J. J. Abrams' earlier film, Cloverfield, as well as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, how rarely the creature is seen only adds to its terrifying presence--it is usually glimpsed as a humongous form that skitters around causing destruction off-screen. The alien in Super 8 is far removed from the one in Spielberg's E.T. the Extra Terrestrial; it is a multi-armed, muscled terror that shares characteristics with a spider. Footage later discovered by the kids reveals that it crash landed on Earth around thirteen years earlier, and has been a prisoner of the United States Air Force ever since. As a result of its captivity, it has become aggressive and even hateful of human beings, showing no remorse in its destruction of people and property while it skulks through the darkness.
Super 8 opens with the funeral reception for the mother of a young boy named Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), one of the children who witnesses the fateful train wreck four months later. Joe's father, Jack (Kyle Chandler) is a police deputy for the town, and resents that his wife was accidentally killed because another man, Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard), was too drunk to show up to work. Joe still grieves for his mother and carries a locket that belonged to her with him, which also has a picture of her inside. Jack, on the other hand, carries a grudge for Louis, and the two men have only shared a longstanding animosity for one another since then. After Joe's friend and amateur filmmaker, Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths), writes in new scenes for his movie and casts Louis' lovely daughter, Alice (Elle Fanning)--who Joe has a secret crush on--Joe and Alice find themselves caught in-between their respective parents' acrimony. The feelings of tension between them can be felt from the first time the unlicensed Alice pulls up in her dad's muscle car to pick up the boys to take them to the train station for their clandestine shoot. She is guarded and suspicious of Joe, and believes that since her father hates Joe's father, Joe is untrustworthy. These feelings quickly dissolve after Joe begins to apply makeup (part of his contribution to the movie) onto Alice, and the anxieties superimposed on them by their parents give way to genuine understanding. Their suffering stems from Jack and Louis's own unresolved grief at the terrible accident, which in reality was no one's fault--at least neither Jack nor Louis. This dynamic parallels the hatred surrounding the passing of Joe's mom and the feelings of anger and vengeance that the alien cultivates after his long-term imprisonment by the Air Force, and the unfeeling and secretive men like commanding officer, Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich), who are devoid of sympathy or scruples as its jailers. The star-crossed relationship between Joe and Alice is more poignant since the two teenagers are trying to cope with their own feelings of loneliness and alienation at home, and sympathize with one another. Joe feels like his dad is trying to get rid of him by pushing him to go to baseball camp, while Louis orders Alice to avoid contact with Joe, which only fuels her urge to rebel, compelling her to spend time with Joe and his friends.
Even from the title, Super 8 establishes itself as a movie which is nostalgic for film. Joe and his friends are all archetypes of kids from Eighties era movies like The Goonies, emphasized in their dialogue, costumes, and mannerisms. This dense layer of nostalgia is integral since adult audiences will be of an age where they can recall the movies referenced and the innocence of childhood that came with it--a quality also emulated in popular television shows like "Stranger Things". Similar to Abram's Cloverfield, Super 8 leveraged a vague viral marketing campaign, with the intent of stoking the flames of interest in the film prior to its release. The short film the kids are working on--featured in the end credits of Super 8--is itself an act of burgeoning maturity for the children, along with the inevitable abandonment of innocence for adulthood. In one of the most telling scenes, the kids are at the fated train station and are setting up the camera, doing makeup, and other things a real film crew would do. Charles goes over lines with his lead actor, Martin (Gabriel Basso), while the perpetual zombie and pyrotechnics enthusiast, Cary (Ryan Lee), is supposed to be loading the camera. In this moment, the children are free from the constraints of acting like children in front of their parents, and are taking their first steps into adulthood, playing out roles in this microcosm of maturity. This scene represents the beginnings of their steps toward adulthood, while Joe, Alice, and the others come to understand more complex human emotions--like forgiveness and sorrow--and how to cope with them as Super 8 rolls on.
Recommended for: Fans of a nostalgia-laden science fiction monster movie that draws inspiration and pays homage to contemporary classics by visionary filmmakers like Steven Spielberg. Super 8 is a film that approaches themes about grief and hatred from both the perspective of adults and the children caught in the middle of the ensuing chaos.
Super 8 opens with the funeral reception for the mother of a young boy named Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), one of the children who witnesses the fateful train wreck four months later. Joe's father, Jack (Kyle Chandler) is a police deputy for the town, and resents that his wife was accidentally killed because another man, Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard), was too drunk to show up to work. Joe still grieves for his mother and carries a locket that belonged to her with him, which also has a picture of her inside. Jack, on the other hand, carries a grudge for Louis, and the two men have only shared a longstanding animosity for one another since then. After Joe's friend and amateur filmmaker, Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths), writes in new scenes for his movie and casts Louis' lovely daughter, Alice (Elle Fanning)--who Joe has a secret crush on--Joe and Alice find themselves caught in-between their respective parents' acrimony. The feelings of tension between them can be felt from the first time the unlicensed Alice pulls up in her dad's muscle car to pick up the boys to take them to the train station for their clandestine shoot. She is guarded and suspicious of Joe, and believes that since her father hates Joe's father, Joe is untrustworthy. These feelings quickly dissolve after Joe begins to apply makeup (part of his contribution to the movie) onto Alice, and the anxieties superimposed on them by their parents give way to genuine understanding. Their suffering stems from Jack and Louis's own unresolved grief at the terrible accident, which in reality was no one's fault--at least neither Jack nor Louis. This dynamic parallels the hatred surrounding the passing of Joe's mom and the feelings of anger and vengeance that the alien cultivates after his long-term imprisonment by the Air Force, and the unfeeling and secretive men like commanding officer, Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich), who are devoid of sympathy or scruples as its jailers. The star-crossed relationship between Joe and Alice is more poignant since the two teenagers are trying to cope with their own feelings of loneliness and alienation at home, and sympathize with one another. Joe feels like his dad is trying to get rid of him by pushing him to go to baseball camp, while Louis orders Alice to avoid contact with Joe, which only fuels her urge to rebel, compelling her to spend time with Joe and his friends.
Even from the title, Super 8 establishes itself as a movie which is nostalgic for film. Joe and his friends are all archetypes of kids from Eighties era movies like The Goonies, emphasized in their dialogue, costumes, and mannerisms. This dense layer of nostalgia is integral since adult audiences will be of an age where they can recall the movies referenced and the innocence of childhood that came with it--a quality also emulated in popular television shows like "Stranger Things". Similar to Abram's Cloverfield, Super 8 leveraged a vague viral marketing campaign, with the intent of stoking the flames of interest in the film prior to its release. The short film the kids are working on--featured in the end credits of Super 8--is itself an act of burgeoning maturity for the children, along with the inevitable abandonment of innocence for adulthood. In one of the most telling scenes, the kids are at the fated train station and are setting up the camera, doing makeup, and other things a real film crew would do. Charles goes over lines with his lead actor, Martin (Gabriel Basso), while the perpetual zombie and pyrotechnics enthusiast, Cary (Ryan Lee), is supposed to be loading the camera. In this moment, the children are free from the constraints of acting like children in front of their parents, and are taking their first steps into adulthood, playing out roles in this microcosm of maturity. This scene represents the beginnings of their steps toward adulthood, while Joe, Alice, and the others come to understand more complex human emotions--like forgiveness and sorrow--and how to cope with them as Super 8 rolls on.
Recommended for: Fans of a nostalgia-laden science fiction monster movie that draws inspiration and pays homage to contemporary classics by visionary filmmakers like Steven Spielberg. Super 8 is a film that approaches themes about grief and hatred from both the perspective of adults and the children caught in the middle of the ensuing chaos.