Super 8

“That was mint!”

Swift shot: If you see this one in theaters, count yourself enlightened, if you wait to rent or own Blu Ray, consider yourself miserable.  Because, trust me, if you wait til you are home to see this for the first time, unless you are exceptionally wealthy and have a veritable theater sized screen at home – – – you are going to be kicking yourself forever!

Occasionally, every few decades or so, a film comes along that just fires on all cylinders and resonates with something inside you that hasn’t been active since you were a kid.  Super 8 manages to do just that, stir up imaginations I once thought completely dormant – where the critical, cynical adult in me keeps the child bolted up in a dungeon called “the impossible”.  I want to thank EVERYONE who made this film a reality, and I wonder if Paramount knows just how fortunate they are to have some of the best film-makers to ever hold that title on their label?

See, I remember, in the before time, seeing an exceptional film and waiting what felt like forever to see it again.  We have become spoiled as movie goers, everything is instantly at our beck and call.  Super 8 is going to be an instant classic film that others of its genre will be scrutinized against for a long time to come.  In 2036, some smart aleck director will be throwing nods to it after popping his film-school cherry, thinking he is worthy to do such a thing.  Yes, Super 8 will hold up throughout the years as a great film, and while the overall concept has been done before, and even the opening credits hint to the “reveal” which every critic right now is trying to figure out how to write about without giving away the farm, it was still an exceptionally well put together story and although set in the past never felt stale or aged . . . more like a fine wine, this film tastes better because it takes us back to a not so long time ago.

Super 8 is essentially one long “Amazing Story” – if you remember the 80’s serials that Producer Spielberg released akin to The Twilight Zone franchise.  Those episodes all had one thing in common, the dialog carried the story along, each word uttered told you something specific about the character, each character – even the non-essential characters, had depth, and there was some kind of twist involved.  Super 8 brings all those elements together but has a longer running time and an exceptional special effects department in ILM.  Hell, I can remember all my friends discussing Amazing Stories the day after it aired, and, yea, there was no TiVo or DVR – if you missed it, you were S.O.L.  And, the cardinal rule was, if your friend missed it, you shut your mouth about the “twist”, because occasionally it was re-aired over a summer weekend, if you were lucky.  Woe be to the sonuvabitch that gave away the ending too – so, no worries, I won’t give away anything here.  Yes, mom, I know I used to do that all the time!

Set in 1979 in a steel town in Ohio, Super 8 essentially is a story about a group of friends, over the summer, dealing with a tragedy that one of them endures at the onset of the film.  It has the feel of a Stand By Me script, though devoid of any narration or device that tells the story in the present.  This film, again, is just an Amazing Story with a supernatural, monster-thriller, or sci-fi element tossed in to keep the characters constantly malleable and interesting.

With great tragedy comes the need for great distraction, and Writer/Director J. J. Abrams gets this, and displays this, quite efficiently.  Rather than let their friend, Joe (Joel Courtney) dwell on his personal loss, his gang of misfits, led by Charles (Riley Griffiths) – who thinks he is the next Hitchcock or Romero – comes up with a perfect distraction . . . a zombie film.  At first some of the others think it a bit tacky to involve a kid who just lost someone close to be shooting a zombie flick, but they figure it might help him take his mind off of the loss as well.  Not to mention, the girl who everyone is afraid to talk to, Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) has agreed to be in the film as zombie hunting detective, Martin’s (Gabriel Basso) wife.

It all starts off innocently enough, Alice steals her dad’s car, without a license (rebels that they are) to drive them to the shoot, EXTERIOR: late at night, a train station, now closed.  They run through lines, Charles delights in directing his friends, and he tries to get the most out of what he’s working with.  His friends are a great team, considering they are in middle-school, and they manage a level of professionalism that exceeds their years.  Then, something happens, a crash, about an EIGHT on the butt-pucker scale [patent pending], which really sets the sci-fi or supernatural elements into locomotion.

What happens next is all too easy to spoil, suffice it to say, something is not quite right in the steel town of Lilian, Ohio circa 1979.  The Air Force, helmed by Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich) is somehow involved, Joe’s dad, Jackson, the deputy sheriff, played by the exceptionally talented TV-actor (Kyle Chandler) is suddenly put in charge and the misfits find themselves caught in the middle of everything but are still hell-bent on finishing their film to submit to the Cleveland Film Festival . . . ah great aspirations must start somewhere, but Cleveland?

Comedy and tragedy is spliced into the story masterfully in short little bursts with character dialog, incredible action sequences and excellent acting.  And, someone check me if I am wrong, but did they cryo freeze the blond-haired brat from the 70’s version of The Bad News Bears and place braces on him to hide his identity?  Because, that kid Cary (Ryan Lee) in Super 8 is his clone!

Super 8 is a high-tech drama with a childish heart that reminds you what it was like to build models, pine for the prettiest girl in school, and to never stop fighting for those you love.  It is a film about loss, grief, struggling to cope and acceptance, all with a “twist” just to make things more interesting . . . or rather, AMAZING!