Super 8 (2011)

J. J. Abrams spirited tribute to Steven Spielberg and the family, fantasy-adventure films of the 70's and 80's, gets it so right, and captures the essence of those films so precisely, as to be practically indistinguishable from the real thing. The script in fact contains only a couple of knowing references to the present day "kids with portable stereos, that's a slippery slope my friend", but other then that and the now superior special effects, this movie could have been made pretty much as-is by Spielberg in 1979, the year in which it is set. The story concerns Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), a 14 year old growing up in a small town nestled in the Ohio hills. His mother has recently been killed in a factory accident, leaving his father Jack (Kyle Chandler) a local sheriff's deputy, to raise him on his own; this missing parent motif is a popular and effective sympathy generating device in stories of this type, and provides an emotional and 'smaller-scale' through line, in counter-point to the movies larger fantasy elements.

It is the summer following his mother's death and Joe intends to spend it helping his friends produce a zombie movie, which they hope to enter in a super 8 film festival. The films 'director' Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths), decides to inject more emotional drama into his story by adding a love interest for its detective protagonist Martin (Gabriel Basso); this character seems to be an homage to actor Martin Starr. Charles recruits for the part the crush inducing Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning). Alice's periodically drunk single father Louise (Ron Eldard) was indirectly, and quite unintentionally, responsible for Mrs. Lamb's death (no he did not cause the accident). As a result of this he objects to Alice and Joe's seeing each other, and perhaps understandably Mr. Lamb feels the same way. One night the group sneaks out and 'borrows' Louise's car to travel to the local train depot and film an emotional scene between Alice and Martin, a scene in which Fanning delivers a jaw-dropping emotional preformance. Our jaws are to drop again shortly there after with a spectacular train derailment sequence, initated by Dr. Woodword (Glynn Turman) a middle school science teacher with a mysterious past. Dr. Woodword warns the kids to run away and say nothing about the crash, otherwise there lives may be in danger. On their way out of the crash site Joe picks up one of many mysterious cubs that spilled out of the wreck.

In short order Nelec (Noah Emmerich) an army officer and evil counterpart to Peter Coyote's Keys character in E.T., shows up with a bunch of solders to investiage the crash. They are after an, again mysterious, creature that Dr. Woodword derailed the train to free. In the days that follow Joe and his friends keep quiet about witnessing the derailment, and though shaken, they continue to work on their zombie movie. At the same time strange things start to happen around town, all the dogs start to run away, auto engines and even telephone cables disappear, as well as a few locals including Sheriff Pruitt (Brett Rice), which effectively leaves Jack in charge of the towns response, and he's rather suspicious of Nelec and his men.

Nelec and the solders start a forest fire as an excuse to evacuate the town and hunt for the creature, but not until after said creature abducts Alice. Upon learning this Joe and the gang sneak back into the town with the help of a comic relief stoner (David Gallagher) to mount a rescue operation. The film contains references and countless evocations of movies of its type, a delicious ice cream swirl of homage. Obvious points of reference include E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Goonies, The Explorers, Invaders From Mars, and less directly The Deer Hunter (factory mountain town setting), and director Abrams own Cloverfield (when will we see the monster?). It's a nostalgia trip gallore, but also works on its own, and quite well. The young cast is uniformly above par, and while Courtney and Fanning deservedly get most of the attention, I thought Griffiths brought a great deal of depth to what could have been a one note character. It's good to see a movie about adolescence played by adolescents of this caliber. I loved Super 8, it was an enveloping joy to watch, and surely one of the best films of 2011, I heartily recommend it.

Great