REVIEW: Super 8 (J.J. Abrams, 2011, USA)

A couple of quick Tree of Life comparisons (grouped together for your convenience)...although Brad Pitt's performance in that film makes it close, there may not be a better actor alive than Kyle Chandler at portraying the awkwardness of fatherhood. Also, the two films frame themselves (in the final moments) as representing a larger process of bereavement. The first shot of Super 8 spells disaster, as a factory worker resets the "___ Days Since Last Accident" sign, and suddenly we're in the small town of Lillian, where Joe Lamb is an outsider at his mother's wake. An incident with a neighbor (who gains later significance) and a sudden departure causes the realization that father and son are not so different. Fast forward a few months to summer, and Joe is hard at work as the makeup guy on his friend Charles' zombie movie. While Abrams' method of storytelling is decidedly Spielbergian, the story itself and his cinematic vernacular betray broader influences, specifically the '50s B-movies evoked by the film-within-a-film and the throwaway lines about communist paranoia. Chandler's deputy sheriff and father is a hero in the tradition of the films of Howard Hawks and John Carpenter, ancillary though he is to Joe and his misfit team of buddies; unmistakably losers, they're thankfully never wasted on an encounter with schoolyard bullies as one might expect, allowed instead to develop their own personalities. Major props to the casting department: Lillian is fully fleshed out with a Who's Who of veteran American character actors, including the stalwart Noah Emmerich as the vaguely menacing Army colonel (my favorite appearance was made by Richard T. Jones, the wisecracking Cooper in Event Horizon nearly wordless here, save for a crucial scene in which the film's underlying racial tension is winkingly acknowledged). 

Yes, it's a wonderful film, but more than anything Super 8 screams for Abrams to break out of the Spielberg mold and create entries in other worthy film traditions. It's a film that exists wholly because of other films, and while that is certainly not a bad thing, the skill in the script and direction (the first major setpiece alone is staggering and enough for us to hand him the keys to Hollywood right now - my jaw dropped more than once) are bursting at the seams with inspiration and Abrams will be wasted if he repeats himself. His brief résumé is commandingly strong. I have mixed feelings toward a generation of Hollywood darlings that includes Abrams and Jon Favreau: they consistently show that the blockbuster need not be worthless, but can they transcend it, or simply crank it up to maximum enjoyment? And there are moments in this film that reach for transcendence - a marvelous, quiet scene between Joe and Elle Fanning's Alice (a strong performance indicative of great things to come) uses the titular film stock as a mechanism for discovery and empathy (the story's most resonant theme), and the blissful, rapturous, awe-inspiring final shot. Just go see it, it's amazing.