Sci-Fi Magic: Through A Child's Eyes

Rating: Null/10 (18 June 2011)

Producer Steven Spielberg received exactly what he wanted from J.J. Abrams ("Star Trek") with his direction of "Super 8." Back to the old school feel of sci-fi cinema, Abrams directs a cast of average and unknown stars allowing the audience to focus their attention on the movie as a whole instead of individual cast members. The film creates a refreshing kick back to film before the term "tween" was incepted as the young cast takes control of the screen leaving out drama found in abundance in contemporary cinema. Instead this is replaced with a believable love story and logical dramatic situations. The filmatic magic opens in the summer of 1979 after Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney's debut role) loses his mother. Joe's best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths's debut role) is an aspiring young director that continually preaches about "production value" as the two friends film Charles's zombie movie with friends Cary (Ryan Lee, "Shorts"), Preston (Zach Mills, "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium")and Martin (Gabriel Basson, "Alabama Moon"). After realizing the film needs a love story they seek out the talents of the girl of their dreams, Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning, "Somewhere") sparking some unfinished business. During a night of shooting at the local train station they witness a pickup truck run into a train sending it off the tracks and releasing an unknown mysterious being. While trying to finish their movie they investigate the phenomenon. Meanwhile, Joe's father Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler, "King Kong") is coping with the loss of his wife while receiving more and more responsibility becoming the face of hope in the town with everything spinning out of control.
Abrams exploits his patented lens flare filming style abundant in "Star Trek" giving the film an overall mystical, science fiction tone. This adds to the art direction of the film and brings to life a superlative script written by Abrams filled with comic relief attributed from the cheesiness of the lingo of the 1980s. This strong backbone allows the young inexperienced cast to flourish shooting the film through their eyes causing the audience to experience the film as kids. It is refreshing to see the most successful moments of the film coming from the performances of the kids; something hard to find in modern cinema.
The film is very good and it may even be labeled as great, but it will always fall in the shadows of "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." This is because while being a sci-fi film, "Super 8" is a more logical film than the two aforementioned and therefore some sequences seem to be a little bit of a reach within Abrams's script writing. These tiny details have held the movie back from reaching its full potential, even though it is still a memorable flashback to a great time period in cinema making it one of the year's best.
The film is a mixture of classic films like "The Goonies" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" with a modern feel. And if you let the magic take hold, you may even feel the awe of a carefree kid seeing a science fiction movie for the first time.