Super 8 (Abrams, 2011)
J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8″ is a meticulously crafted entertainer that unfolds predictably but charms just the same. Its mystery may ultimately prove underwhelming — with trappings recycled from early Spielberg wonder flicks and old “Twilight Zone” episodes — but the film is memorable for its emotional payoff, helped to fruition by Abrams’ skill as a storyteller and a radiant young cast.
Also beneficial is the movie’s sense of place. The characters live in a small Ohio town in the summer of 1979, a locale and time that require daydreaming. They film movies on Super 8, ride their bikes just to cross the street and can see a train coming for miles. The setting functions as an homage to early Spielberg productions, but it’s also crucial to the plot when a train derails on the outskirts of town and resulting power outages and missing persons throw the community into upheaval. It becomes apparent that something unnatural escaped from the train, and a government clean-up only serves to rile the locals further.
The mysteries of the train crash and of the force unleashed on the town drive the story, and while the audience is not spoon-fed every answer, the few explanations provided by the end feel more like worn genre staples than satisfying revelations.
Thankfully, the movie is not really about conspiracies, but about a boy named Joe (Joel Courtney) who finds himself witness to the bizarre occurrences four months after his mother’s accidental death. His father (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff’s deputy, manages the townsfolk amid the chaos but is reticent to give the same attention to his son. Joe falls for Alice (Ellie Fanning), who also has a strained relationship with her father (Ron Eldard), and she and Joe find solace in each other. Their friendship becomes the heart of the movie, complimented by interactions with Joe’s buddies, who are as amusing as any band of young movie heroes in recent memory. Together, the kids discover the truth of the train wreck, and regardless of the hokum they find, their decisions and admissions along the way feel refreshingly plausible.
Even with its routine facade, Abrams has designed a stalwart blockbuster with “Super 8.” He understands conventions and when to supply or subvert them. He knows to establish credible characters so the audience will care what happens to them. And he grasps the value of adventure, whether we experience it firsthand or invent our own under those endless Midwestern skies.
Grade: B
You had me with “he grasps the value of adventure.” Though, since it’s at the end of the review, I suppose you’d been getting me the whole time.