Date Posted: July 9, 2011
Print Edition: July 8, 2011
By Michael Scoular (Contributor) – Email
Director: JJ Abrams
Starring: Joel Courtney, Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning
Runtime: 112 minutes
Super 8, JJ Abrams’ latest directorial work, evokes Spielberg in its marketing, credits, and in the corner of as many frames as can be imagined; and yet, a movie with Spielberg as its model ought to have more imagination. Some will throw around the term “homage,” but Abrams has lifted plot elements from E.T., images from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and brought along the monster designer from Cloverfield and Star Trek to make this movie, with no unique identity of his own. Abrams claims to have a clear purpose here: an ode to his childhood, a tribute to his favorite filmmaker, all with the production values of the modern era. However, when looking at the movie, the most prominent takeaway is Abram’s inability to find a clear purpose for his film.
Take for instance the title: Super 8, which is in reference to the type of movie camera a group of children use to make their own motion pictures. The early scenes showing these kids heckling, speaking over each other, and bubbling with anticipation of summer and more moviemaking are the highlight of the film, but then enters the much-teased monster via rail accident, in a sequence roundly applauded by critics, and stupefying when viewed in person. This loud, occasionally incoherent, and entirely implausible sequence abruptly halts any significance of the titular subject, introduces the movie-ruining monster, and sets a new, jarring, and cacophonous tone that rings throughout the rest of the movie all in one fell swoop. It is already clear at this point in the movie that Abrams values spectacle over substance, which is fine when the spectacle is spectacular, even wondrous as it was in 2009’s Star Trek, but here it deadens the senses rather than excites them.
But what of the Spielbergian imagery? Well, there are the shots in and around the children’s neighbourhood, which call back to E.T. quite blatantly; and there are numerous motifs and other Easter eggs throughout which many a fan site will compile for a blog post, but what Abrams does not seem to understand is that images alone do nothing, it is how they function, how they exist in context, that determines their worth. Take the final image of the movie, for example, though watch out for spoilers.
Just as in E.T., a family is reunited, an alien is sent home, the wind blows in their faces, the music swells, and everyone goes home happy. Only this image is not earned, as it was in Spielberg’s. The family issue between father and son is never worked out, for one. There is hardly any development or contact between them until the final scene, which ends in an embrace because, well, the movie is ending, and the final shot must mirror E.T.’s. To have the movie end on such a fake note is a disservice to its characters. As a comparison, consider the scene in E.T. where Elliot is attempting to teach the extraterrestrial the “facts of life.” In one part, he illustrates the food chain, using his fish tank and a toy shark. This calls back to Spielberg’s Jaws, but also fulfills an important part in the movie: a critical development scene between the two, complemented and made more humorous not just because of Elliot’s narration but also the image used. In Super 8, the image is all we have and the use of it is decidedly unfulfilling, which is one of the movie’s key failings.
If Abrams is attempting to share the same world with Spielberg, then one would hope Abrams would understand how that world works. It is not a world in which excitement is created through jump scares, explosions, and referencing other, better works, but through suspense, and, more importantly, a real emotional link between characters that is fully developed. It is a great disappointment that Abrams lacks the ability to execute these in Super 8. His previous film and the first fifteen minutes of this one are fun, exciting, and overflowing with energy; the rest, by just about any comparison, are soulless.
Super 8 is currently playing at the Towne Cinema in Abbotsford, Silvercity in Mission, and Colossus in Langley.
