Release Date – 6/10/2011
Joe Lamb is dealing with the death of his mother and having a hard time getting over it. He does not have the greatest relationship with his father, so he turns to his friends and a movie they are creating for some enjoyment. One night during a late filming session, a truck crashes head on with a train causing a spectacular crash. The kids see that it’s an United States Air Force train and find some odd cargo but have to flee when the military shows up. Over the next few days, the military have completely taken over the town and are not giving the local police any information. The kids accidentally caught some kind of creature coming off the train while their camera was still rolling, so they know the military is trying to cover something up. This is a great coming of age story mixed with a small town monster invasion. A character driven adventure film but with an alien. So many ways you can describe it, and I loved every minute of it.
The cast is filmed with mostly unknown actors. Joel Courtney takes the lead in his first feature film as Joe Lamb. Joe is like Elliot from E.T. or Mikey from The Goonies. We immediately get a back story of sadness from his mother’s death which automatically gets you feeling something for the kid. Joe’s friends are played by Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Riley Griffiths and Gabriel Basso. Like I said, pretty much unknown child actors. All of them pretty damn good though. Griffiths plays the heavy set leader of the group, Charles. He desperately wants to make a zombie movie and win a film competition. Mills plays the timid Preston who fears for his life after witnessing the train crash. Lee plays the pyromaniac brace face Cary. Basso plays Martin, the lead in the kids’ short film and the scaredy cat of the group. The one semi-recognizable face is Elle Fanning as Alice. She’s the older pretty girl at school who gets recruited to play the love interest in the zombie movie. She’s pretty damn impressive, in their film and in the actual film Super 8. Kyle Chandler from TV’s Friday Night Lights fame plays Joe’s dad and a local cop. He’s like the Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters, abandoning his family duties when he becomes obsessed with the train crash. I love how the characters can be compared to great coming of age films like Stand By Me and the previously mentioned films. Makes you feel like you have something special going on.
Writer/Director JJ Abrams is a master at character driven drama. Even though he goes out into sci-fi territory on occasion and might scare some people off, he bases his movies and TV shows in strong characters. In Season 1 of LOST where JJ was heavily involved, we got seriously invested in a large ensemble cast. That takes talent. Compare it to X-Men: First Class where we only care about a handful of the large cast. Abrams does it very well in Super 8. Now I haven’t even mentioned the monster yet. Another thing Abrams is a master of is creating suspenseful build up (again, am I right LOST fans?). We don’t get a full shot of the monster/alien until the third act of the film. And the whole time you’re just itching to see this thing, on the edge of your seat trying to look around the edges of the movie screen. Much live Cloverfield, we get really quick glimpses but we can’t make it out in most scenes. But trust me, there’s a pay off in the end. Now I’ve thrown around classic titles like Stand By Me, The Goonies, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. And a big monster flick live Cloverfield. Mish mash all those together and its Super 8. Big action scenes (unbelievable train crash sequence) mixed with a kids adventure story. The best movie of the summer so far. Hell, it’s the best movie of the year so far!!! STAMP IT!
IMDB – N/A
Rotten Tomatoes – 83%
Movie Wiseguys – 9/10
June 10, 2011 at 9:15 am
Hell yes. I was surprised how heartfelt it was, pulled at the heart strings pretty hard in a handful of scenes. Also had some comic relief, nostalgia out the ass, and made me jump a couple times. I agree awesome performances by the young actors, I feel like Spielberg is just a master of finding young talent. The score was pretty sweet too especially at the end which was phenomenal. The lens flares were a little much but I realize JJ needs to put his trademark on the film. Overall I loved it as well and probably would of given it the same score.
June 10, 2011 at 9:52 am
The end definitely had a great score. I actually wasn’t getting into it too much during most of the movie and forgot Giacchino did it until the end and it sparked in my brain that I should have been paying more attention. I’ll have to check out some tunes on the score soundtrack.