I’m a fan of J.J. Abrams. He brought me one of my favorite TV shows, Lost, he turned me into a Star Trek fan, and revitalized my favorite franchise…Mission Impossible…no, I mean Star Wars. So, my daughter and I sat down and finally watched Super 8 and really enjoyed it. The film’s not perfect and has the trade mark Abram Flares, but I’d still say it’s Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy, but darn close.
In 1979, A group of middle school kids are working on a movie when they witness a horrific train crash. A string of unexplained events begin to happen in the town afterwards and the Air Force is searching for something and won’t cooperate with the local authorities.
Joel Courtney plays the lead character Joe Lamb with Elle Fanning playing his friend Alice Dainard. Their stories are really the driving force of the film. Joe’s friends Cary (Ryan Lee), Preston (Zach Mills), Martin (Gabriel Basso) and Charles (Riley Griffiths) are filming a zombie movie for a film festival. There are some great scenes of them working on the movie and how each of their talents plays a factor. Charles writes in a wife that Alice will end up playing claiming the movie need more story so the audience would care about what happens to the character. It’s a meta moment in the film as the development of Joe is necessary for us to care about what happens to him. The kids do a great job in the film and even in the more intense action scenes they perform expertly with Fanning being the dominant performance.
As a fan of Abrams and film in general I enjoyed the scenes of the movie focused around them making their film. I imagine Abrams past experience was the motivation for this aspect of the actual movie I was watching. Charles is constantly spitting the phrase, “production value,” and Cary wants to blow everything up.
My daughter also enjoyed this movie. It’s very accessible to kids and has an E.T. vibe in the tone. It might just be that it’s kids cursing and set in the late 70’s. Definitely a film that is worth a watch.
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