A fine piece of nostalgia

Rating: 8/10 (5 August 2011)

Minus the computer generated visual effects, and if the credits at the end were lopped off, you might think that Super 8 was made in the late 1970s or early 1980s and was directed by Steven Spielberg. However, while Spielberg is a producer on the film, he did not direct it, that task was handled by J.J. Abrams, but the film plays like a love letter to many of Spielberg's best known works from that era. This isn't a soulless imitation, though, for Super 8 manages to recapture what made those films work well, delivering the audience back to a time, for many of us, of cinematic innocence.
Set in 1979 in a small town in Ohio, we are introduced to Joe (Joel Courtney), Charles (Riley Griffiths), Cary (Ryan Lee), Preston (Zach Mills) and Martin (Gabriel Basso), middle school friends working on Charles Super 8 film for entry into a contest. Late one night, driven to a location by Alice (Ellie Fanning), the daughter of a man believed responsible, to an extent, for the recent death of Joe's mother at a nearby factory, the kids manage to capture footage of an immense train crash just outside town. The crash appears to have been instigated by their Biology teacher, Mr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), and the site is quickly overrun by military officials, led by Nelic (Noah Emmerich), who begins a cleanup and encampment in the town that proves worrisome to Joe's father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a deputy in the town. When mysterious things begin happening (power flickering, pets disappearing, engines missing out of cars), followed by disappearances of townspeople, Jackson suspects there is more to the situation than the army is revealing.
In the midst of these happenings, Charles is trying to finish his movie, but Joe can't help but be pulled into the search for the truth of what is happening as well, while at the same time experiencing a budding young romance taking shape between him and Alice, complicated by their individual fathers not wanting the two kids to intermingle due to the accident at the mill.
Super 8 pays homage to so many films that Spielberg either directed, such as E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or films that he had a hand in producing, including The Goonies, but not just by utilizing plot or character elements. No, Super 8 goes the extra mile, to the point that visual and auditory components feel ripped right from that period of time. Individual shots, especially those of the city below and the stars in the sky, match the feel of similar shots from Close Encounters; the lighting, film stock, all of it just oozes respect for those well loved films of that era. Even Michael Giachinno's score echoes the work of John Williams. Giachinno is an exceptional craftsman who has proved able to meld his work with the styles of other composers, and with Super 8 he has worked his magic once again, capturing the heart of the music in Spielberg's earlier works. None of this has the feel of a crass rip-off; it is all assembled with a deep felt love of those films from that period, and works beautifully.
One element that Abrams has also managed to capture is the very "ordinariness" of the characters. These are not superheroes, top trained military operatives or mathematical whizzes. They are average, small town boys, girls and adults, and they very much reflect the audience, much as Spielberg did often in that same era. Abrams has also assembled a fine cast, especially the very capable child actors, led by Courtney and Fanning, who have strong chemistry between them from their first scenes together, and it builds into a sweet, innocent romance that is effectively realized throughout the running time. The other boys also feel as if they are good friends, filled with a degree of curiousness and fear at appropriate times. The adult characters aren't ignored, focusing especially on Jackson, a man who is somewhat lost without his wife and not sure how to raise his son on his own, while also juggling the responsibilities of trying to figure out what is going on in the town. Chandler gives a strong performance, showing both the hard and soft of Jackson appropriately.
If there is one element that doesn't quite work in Super 8, it is the central mystery of the film, most specifically its payoff. The "monster" of Super 8 is well-handled early in the proceedings, Abrams again taking a page from the book of Spielberg, specifically Jaws in this case, taking care to not reveal the central antagonist, keeping it in the shadows for the most part. But as the film builds to its climax, the revelations about the creature, and its eventual full reveal, are somewhat underwhelming, and the degree of emotional resonance with this part of the story is limp, at best.
That being said, overall, Super 8 is successful, filling you with a strong sense of nostalgia for an era, and a subset of work by a particular filmmaker, gone by. In a time when directors and writers seem to be constantly trying to cram more and more noise, frenetic action, and jump cut editing into movies, a refreshing look back at when that wasn't the case is welcome, and enjoyed.