‘Super’ movie decent, but lacking at the end
Many fans of J.J. Abrams’ work, the writer/director beyond the
television shows
”
Lost
”
and
”
Fringe,
”
were excited to see his latest work on the big screen. Trailers
of
”
Super 8
”
promised a lot of the same suspense and mystery as the TV
shows.
But the movie brought a lot more with it, and aside from a few
melodramatic moments, it was just the right mix of mystery, drama
and humor
– until the end.
‘Super’ movie decent, but lacking at the end
Many fans of J.J. Abrams’ work, the writer/director beyond the television shows “Lost” and “Fringe,” were excited to see his latest work on the big screen. Trailers of “Super 8” promised a lot of the same suspense and mystery as the TV shows.
But the movie brought a lot more with it, and aside from a few melodramatic moments, it was just the right mix of mystery, drama and humor – until the end.
Abrams borrowed from a lot of other films in making his big screen movie. The story is set in a small town in 1979, and revolves around a hodge-podge group of middle school students who are making a movie for a film festival. The relationship of the boys, and their token female friend Alice, feels a bit like that in “Stand by Me,” but with a little of the humor from “The Goonies” thrown in. The movie has the mystery of a good thriller or monster movie, as well.
Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is a little lost after his mother dies in a factory accident in the winter. His father Jackson (Kyle Chandler) is a devoted sheriff’s deputy who has never known how to interact with his son, who is into doing movie make-up and painting model trains. He knows even less what to do with his son when his wife passes away. Jackson wants to send Joe to a baseball camp for the summer, but Joe has already promised to help his friends finish a zombie movie.
Charles (Riley Griffiths) is the ring leader of the group. He’s written the script and he is directing the Super 8 film, which he wants to submit to a film festival. The group is rounded out by Cary (Ryan Lee) who wants to blow things up, Martin (Gabriel Basso), who has a weak stomach in all sorts of situations, and Preston (Zach Mills). The boys have only shot one scene when Charles decides the movie needs a more personal touch, so he invites Alice (Elle Fanning) to play the wife of the detective who is hunting down zombies.
One of the best things about the movie is the easy way in which the boys interact with each other. The dialogue doesn’t feel trite or forced. The middle school kids don’t talk like adults, as often happens in movies with teen leads. They talk like middle school kids who have fun teasing each other. It probably helped that Griffiths and Courtney are new to acting so they come across as plausible teens.
The mystery element comes in when the kids all sneak out of the house one night to shoot a scene by the train station outside of town. Alice has borrowed her father’s car, though she doesn’t have a license, and they all pack into the car to drive out to the location. As they rehearse the scene, they hear a train approaching in the distance. Charles pushes the cinematographer to get the film in so that they can add the train passing as “production value.” But as the train approaches, things go horribly wrong. Joe is the only one to see as a truck pulls onto the tracks and starts heading straight at the train.
The train derails and the kids somehow manage to avoid getting injured, though Charles’ camera is toast. As the boys walk around the site, they notice some weird Rubik’s cube-shaped items. They also notice how dispersed the wreckage is and note that it seems more drastic than hitting one truck should have been. They approach the truck on the tracks and find they know the driver. It is their biology teacher Dr. Woodward. He has a map and schedule of the train route in his hands. When Alice approaches him, they see he is still alive. But he warns them away from the wreckage and points a gun at them, telling them to keep quiet about what they saw or they and their families will be in danger.
The funniest thing about the movie is that in the sure way that teens are self-absorbed in their own lives, the boys go on making their film even as Air Force troops descend on their town and mysterious things start happening. Electronics and mechanical items are going missing in droves. Pet dogs have all run away to nearby cities and even a few people are missing. But the boys continue to make their film, using the train wreckage and the soldiers as “production value.”
Joe is the only one of his friends who is interested in what might have been on the train and why the Air Force is interested in it. When some of the mysterious happenings start to affect them, Joe persuades his friends that they need to be heroes. The end of the movie, which reveals what is causing all the mysterious missing pets, people and products, is somewhat anti-climatic as it turns into more of a generic monster movie. But the rest of the movie was worth the watch.
