Super 8

  Friday evening, my mom and I went out to see the new Spielberg/Abrams movie Super 8. I first saw the poster for Super 8 about a year ago (I think) coming out of one of our local theaters. All I really noticed about the poster was that it was strange, and had both J. J. Abrams' and Steven Spielberg's names, and I was hooked.

Anyone under 30-years old (myself included) might not immediately understand the title reference; my mom had to explain to me that Super 8mm cameras were what she used to make home movies with when she was young. That makes the title of the movie seem a bit more cheery or homey than the poster or trailer would suggest, but after seeing the movie, I completely understand why Abrams choose that as his title.

The main characters shooting a scene of their movie-within-a-movie

Super 8 is a period 'monster' sci-fi that takes place in 1979. The main character is Joe, a 13-year-old boy whose mother was killed in a factory accident four months before the action of the film. His best friend, Charles, is an aspiring director who roped all his friends together to shoot a home zombie movie on their Super 8mm for a contest, and invites schoolmate Alice Dainard, somewhat last-minute, to star in a new role. She's unhappy to realize that Joe is working on the zombie movie as the makeup artist, but wows all the guys with her amazing acting skills anyways.

 

In the middle of their shoot, a truck drives onto the nearby tracks in front of a passing train and cues an amazing train crash, which the Super 8 camera records. In the theater, whispering, my mom declared this train crash scene to be her second-favorite movie train crash, behind the one from Harrison Ford's The Fugitive. After re-watching that scene from The Fugitive, I can see where she's coming from - both train crash scenes put you right in the action, with train cars toppling above and around you instead of below you or off to the side. The crash in Super 8 was a bit over-the-top (the reason for it being second-favorite), but for a modern sci-fi, I felt it was excusable, especially since it was pretty much the only on-screen action we got.

I personally loved the special effects. The train crash was great, and I loved its threatening realism despite being unrealistic, but what really got me was the use of lens flares. It was subtle, and didn't really add anything to the plot, but the blue lens flares popping up throughout the film effectively blended the sci-fi main plot-thread with the nostalgic, period feel, I thought.

Example of the use of the blue lens flare

For the first hour-and-a-half of the movie, any contact the audience got with 'the monster' was via creepy scenes where things moved in the dark and police cars were destroyed while the camera was turned. Towards the end of the movie, the film from Charles' Super 8 camera is developed, and while reviewing it, Charles and the protagonist Joe discover what was on the train that the camera accidentally filmed.

Charles (left) and Joe (right) seeing what the Super 8 filmed

The movie Super 8 is mostly about the train crash, 'the monster', and 'what the camera caught'. What really drives the story, however, are the characters' personal sub-stories. Joe is still hanging on to his mother's memory, but he's not as beat up about it as his father, who's the town deputy and now has to deal with the Air Force trying to play down the crash. Alice's father is a trouble-maker who's on bad terms with Joe's father, spoiling their budding friendship, and even after witnessing the train crash first hand and seeing how their town changes afterward, Charles continues to film his movie, scene by scene, as everyone, from their own vantage point, tries to understand what's really going on.

Most movie critics who've written reviews online are complaining that Super 8 is unoriginal, which makes no sense to me. For one, how many movies coming out of Hollywood these days are original? Maybe 1 out of every ten, at the most. Super 8 doesn't claim to be an original feature. Instead, it's a throwback, both to better days and better stories. The tale of the boy and his father is a classic that relates to us no matter how many times we see it.

For what it's worth, however, this is one of the better renditions. Super 8 is fun without being too light or too dark. It's not a deep, complicated movie that can't be understood, nor is it a silly action-fest or ridiculous horror-flick. It tells a meaningful story, surrounded by suspenseful sci-fi mystery.

And kids dressed up as zombies. Don't forget that.

Super 8 easily earns its PG-13 rating with a few tense scenes and some bad language, some of which seems unfortunately forced. It can be frightening at times, and I wouldn't recommend taking your young children to see it. If you have teenagers, however, you might get a kick out of showing off your childhood to them. I'm definitely going to be getting this when it comes out on DVD (or BD, I guess), either as a gift to my mom or to myself.

Fan poster for "The Case" (by SuperMercado)

If you see Super 8 in theaters, though, I have one request - stay seated. It's a tradition in my family to stay during the whole credits, so we never miss anything. Most credit sequences are kind of bland, but Super 8 did not disappoint.

About thirty seconds to a minute after the screen turned black and the credits started to roll, a video starts on the side, playing the final version of the zombie-horror film that the kids had been shooting throughout the movie. Several people in the theater managed to bolt before realizing what was going on, but everyone else there stopped on their way out of their seats and stood for five minutes, watching the delightful home movie that the kids actually filmed themselves. That's right - J. J. Abrams sat down with his young main cast and told them to write a short, five-minute zombie film to shoot while the professionals filmed the real movie.

The kids used the Super 8mms they were given as props to actually go out and shoot the film, titled "The Case", and what they produced was then digitized and added to the credits. Consider this, and every other after-the-credits scene you've ever missed, a plea from movie-makers everywhere to stay during the credits, even if it's just to wind-down from the movie and talk with your friends about what you thought.