I don’t always get the chance to do a special ‘Anniversary’
review for a film, but for this year, there was one that I knew that I wanted
to do since the film in question is one of my favorite films of all-time from
one of my favorite directors. Said film came out on June 10th, 2011,
a little less than a year before I officially started this site in May of 2012.
Thus, my original review for that film was on my old Rotten Tomatoes account
and the only instances where I’ve ever addressed it on this site were A.)
whenever I mention it as a part of its director’s filmography and B.) an
incredibly old and thoroughly outdated post that I did in 2013 where I listed
my Top 10 Favorite Films of 2011. But today, in honor of the 10th
anniversary of its release, it’s time for us to take a proper look at the 2011 sci-fi/monster
adventure, Super 8. Super 8 was the third feature-length
directorial outing from J.J. Abrams and was an original project that he made
in-between the two Star Trek films that he directed, the franchise’s
titular 2009 reboot and its 2013 sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness. Much
of the film was inspired by Abrams’ experiences making Super 8 films when he
was younger, including a notable run-in with none other than the legendary Steven
Spielberg, who had once hired him to repair some of his old Super 8 reels. And
if that wasn’t enough, Super 8 is produced by Spielberg via his
production company, Amblin Entertainment. So, in other words, Super 8 can
very much be described as a modern-day Spielberg film albeit one that wasn’t
directed by the man himself. And while some have argued that its attempts at
paying homage to the films that inspired it may have been a bit too much
(which, ironically, wouldn’t be the only time that this argument has been
applied to a J.J. Abrams film), it’s also one of the main reasons why this film
has thoroughly stuck with me after all these years.
In 1979 in the town of Lillian, Ohio, teenager Joe Lamb
(Joel Courtney) suffers a devastating tragedy when his mother Elizabeth (Caitriona
Balfe) is killed in a steel factory accident. Several months later, Joe begins
to help his best friend Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths) produce a zombie film
for a local Super 8 film competition along with their friends Cary McCarthy
(Ryan Lee), Martin Reed (Gabriel Basso), and Zach Mills (Preston Scott). Charles
also recruits the help of their classmate Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) despite
the intense animosity between her father Louis (Ron Eldard) and Joe’s father
Jack (Kyle Chandler), the town’s Deputy Sheriff, for the former’s inadvertent
role in Elizabeth’s death. While filming at a train station one night, they
witness an Air Force train get into a head-on collision with a truck, and while
they barely manage to survive the experience, something mysterious breaks free
from the train that begins to cause a series of strange incidents all over town
with multiple people disappearing. Eventually, the gang realizes that they
managed to get a glimpse of whatever broke out of the train on film, thus
leading them on a journey to try and find it before the Air Force ends up
destroying it.
When people say that this is basically J.J. Abrams’
‘Spielberg film’, it’s admittedly quite easy to see why and not just because
Spielberg himself produced it. From a narrative standpoint, Super 8 thoroughly
maintains a lot of the story beats that defined many of Spielberg’s most iconic
films, especially when it comes to the overall concept of kids from a quiet town
going through a truly otherworldly experience as seen in films like E.T. and
The Goonies (even though Spielberg technically didn’t direct the latter).
And while I know that some critics gave Abrams some major flak for how overt
his homages to Spielberg’s work were, I think that he handles this aspect of
the film excellently, thus giving Super 8 a pleasantly nostalgic vibe but
one that’s done under a modern aesthetic. Really, the only ‘Spielberg trope’ that
he didn’t need to utilize here was the decision to not overtly show this film’s
alien creature for most of the run-time. Sure, it worked with the shark in Jaws
but that was back in the ’70s and was a result of Spielberg overcoming the
problems that stemmed from the mechanical sharks that were used during the production which, as you can probably guess, is something that usually isn’t an
issue nowadays in an age where most visual effects are CGI-based. And yet, this
doesn’t prevent the film from being a wholly engaging story that also excellently
hits its biggest emotional beats. I’ve always felt that one of J.J. Abrams’
best traits as a director is his strong handling of a story’s most important
emotional moments and Super 8 is another prime example of that as it
explores how both the Lamb and Dainard families have struggled to cope with the
accident that has forever tied them together.
It also goes without saying that one of the biggest ways in
which this film pays tribute to the Spielberg aesthetic is how it largely
relies on a cast that’s primarily made up of kids. Back when Super 8 first
came out, almost all its young leads were genuine newcomers, and while several
of them have gone on to be in other projects since then, Elle Fanning was basically
the only one of them who had any sort of experience in the industry at that
time. Despite this, however, they all do a fantastic job in their respective
roles. Their camaraderie is top-notch and while the story does mainly focus on
its two main protagonists, Joe and Alice, the other members of the group do get
to have their standout moments, from Charles getting a lot of the best comedic
lines (which helps to make up for his admittedly abrasive personality) and Cary’s
overt obsession with fireworks that other characters find concerning.
Ultimately, though, the biggest stars of the show are Joel Courtney and Elle
Fanning. Fanning is arguably the biggest standout of the entire film,
showcasing some impressive maturity for her age, and while Courtney’s
performance is more subdued by comparison, it still very much feels right in
line with other similarly aged Spielberg-esque protagonists such as Elliott
from E.T. Finally, to close out the main cast, we have a solid trio of
performances from the film’s adult leads; Kyle Chandler as Joe’s father Jack,
who struggles to reconnect with his son, Ron Eldard as Alice’s drunk but
emotionally traumatized father Louis, and Noah Emmerich, who’s appropriately
sinister as Nelec, the Air Force colonel who’s revealed to have a history with
the alien creature that has been unleashed on the town.
I still fondly remember the anticipation that I had for this
film’s release, which all started when its first trailer ran in front of Iron
Man 2 all the way back in 2010. Since this was right around the time that J.J.
Abrams’ first Star Trek film was quickly becoming one of my favorite
films of all time, I was very much hyped to see his next film, especially since
it was going to be produced by the one and only Steven Spielberg. And while I
wouldn’t properly play it until many years after both it and the film’s release,
it’s also cool to note how Super 8 was promoted by one of the most
popular video games of the year, Portal 2, which featured an ‘interactive
trailer’ for the film that put players on the Air Force train that carries the
alien creature as it gets into its big crash. Basically, to make a long story
short, Super 8 was a prime example of J.J. Abrams’ ‘mystery box’
approach to marketing his films so that he could avoid the leak of major spoilers.
Granted, this trademark of his ended up attracting a mostly negative reaction
from both critics and audiences due to its debatable effectiveness, especially
in the wake of Star Trek Into Darkness’ big reveal surrounding its take
on the character Khan Noonien Singh. That said, though, I do think that he deserves
credit for what I view as a noble attempt at pulling all this off in an age
where film-related spoilers and leaks are practically commonplace. Now, with all
that in mind, I can freely admit that I don’t necessarily consider Super 8 to
be J.J.’s best film, mostly due to a few plot elements here and there that could’ve
benefitted from some additional development.
Ultimately, though, it’s safe to say that the biggest
talking point surrounding this film was its status as Abrams’ tribute to the
filmography of Steven Spielberg, a move that attracted both its fans… and its
critics. In other words, the discourse surrounding this film isn’t that far off
from the ongoing debate that film fandom has had these past few years about
nostalgia in general and how it’s heavily defined a lot of recent media. Case
in point, as I alluded to back in the intro, this was not the first time (nor
was it the last, for that matter) that a J.J. Abrams film attracted a bunch of
attention over its nostalgic elements; just look at how a nagging nitpick about
The Force Awakens ended up becoming the defining criticism of The
Rise of Skywalker. And yet, as someone who considers himself to have a neutral
stance on the whole nostalgia debate (in other words, someone who’s totally
fine with it but not to the point where it’d cloud my judgment on anything), I believe
that J.J. Abrams very much succeeded in making this his ‘Spielberg film’. In
fact, I’d even bet that anyone who goes into this completely unaware of the
fact that J.J. Abrams directed it wouldn’t have guessed that it wasn’t a Steven
Spielberg directed film until the end credits. In short, while I may not have
been alive during the era in which this film takes place, it wholly succeeds in
bringing you back to a time where Steven Spielberg gave us some of the greatest
films of all-time, effectively making Super 8 the second J.J. Abrams directed
film after 2009’s Star Trek that will always have its place as one of my
favorite films of all time.
Rating: 5/5!
