Super 8 (2011)

Review by Sean Patterson



"...that was mint!"

As I spent my time watching Super 8, I was distracted by one question: is this a horror movie? The trailer led me to believe it was a monster movie, which it is. The flick has terrifying moments and at least one gruesome death. What the trailer didn't prepare me for is the fact that most of the characters in the movie are children.
Not that the children don't pull it off. They lead a cast of character actors who perform great at every moment. The tight writing of writer/director J.J. Abrams allows them to shine, emoting youthful glee, terror, jealousy, and love. The characters are well rounded and all are likable or unlikable to suit. The movie is long, but needs to be. It is well edited and paced.
Seeing what Abrams has done before, I'm going to chalk up the suspicious feeling I have about the movie to producer Stephen Spielberg's influence. The movie has a very broad appeal and humor that, while in no way bad, always leaves me feeling cheated out of something that could have been more personal.
What Spielberg almost certainly didn't influence heavily is the action. Abrams has already proven he can do action and suspense with Mission Impossible III and the Star Trek reboot and he doesn't disappoint here. The turmoil is visceral and is, in a manner of speaking, directed AT the audience in a way recent 3-d films have tried so hard but failed to do. This is highlighted by the most violent and amazing train crash I've ever seen. I can't decide whether most of the special effects were CGI or not, which is a wonderful thing when you consider this summer's other movies. Super 8 doesn't shy away from a little death or blood, and uses the environment well to foreshadow and postpone the big reveals.
The only real complaint I have is how the score is used: it's constant, overbearing, and didactic. It's the sort of music that demands, "YOU WILL FEEL THE WAY I WANT YOU TO AND YOU WILL FEEL IT RIGHT NOW!" Another problem with the music is that it, or rather the lack of it, foreshadows what are supposed to be the "gotcha" moments in the flick. These moments could have been effective if every one of them hadn't been foreshadowed by a palpable lack of the nonstop music. As with every thing else in the movie, though, the music is really good.
I won't reveal much story or plot except to say the flick is about a group of kids who, while making a zombie movie, witness a military train crash, the results of which put a small American town in some peril. Anything else I could say would spoil it a bit, but if you put your mind to it's easy enough flesh out the rest. It uses its predictability and cliche in a good way, though. That's turns out to be the point, really.
The answer to my question has to be that Super 8 is a horror movie, if not the type I expected. What the movie is really about is the nostalgia for 70's pre-Star Wars cinema and culture. That's something I can understand and respect, if not fully experience because of my age. But anyone who grew up in that era should walk away from the flick with a smile.