I suppose an allegory that discusses the oppression of others for personal advancement could be limned, but Super 8 doesn’t try to be pedantic and delve into this theme – and it’s a better movie for it; rather, this summer’s most recent blockbuster keeps such discourse on the periphery, letting the audience know it’s present but prohibiting it from becoming a repetitious sledgehammer of a metaphor a la 2009’s District 9. Characteristically, J.J. Abrams plays to his strengths and presents a tale that generates well-crafted spectacle and suspense. Missing are the obligatory twists and turns that parade themselves as clever plot points; here, they are replaced by a plausible narrative that begins with a train wreck and ends with closure that doesn’t set the audience up for a sequel, which is also rather refreshing given that a number of sci-fi / fantasy / superhero movies function more as cogs in a franchise crafted by marketing plans.
For the most part, Abrams’ script is solid and the young actors and actress fill their roles nicely as one-dimensional characters who represent some facet of adolescence and possess some demarcating trait: Cary (Ryan Lee) the awkward-looking, weird kid with a penchant for lighting fire (which clearly comes in handy toward the end of the film); Martin (Gabriel Basso), the easily frightened, worried boy who vomits during tense moments for the sake of comic relief; Charles (Riley Griffiths) the artistic, intelligent lad who takes himself a little too seriously and says “Mint!” when something tickles his fancy; Joe (Joel Courtney), the brooding old soul twelve year old whose mother recently died, which has augured an emotional chasm between him and his father; and, Alice (Elle Fanning), the old soul’s female counterpart, whose father is an alcoholic that is indirectly to blame for the death of Joe’s mother.
There has been a bit of criticism that these characters lack depth, but why should they be deep? First of all, they’re all twelve years old, and for the most part, twelve year olds are not “worldly”; rather, theynavigate through the trials and tribulations of junior high, trying to find or fashion an identity; making them too deep would render them phony. Truthfully, the deepest character is Alice, with Joe coming in as a close second, and the rationale for this is simple: they have experienced tragedies that the others have not; thus, they have jumped more hurdles and have had intimate contact with the “adult-related” experiences of death, uncertainty, and change. The other characters are clichés, but they fill the proper holes and help move the plot along fluidly without devolving the film to slapstick predictability. In a sense, these characters, appropriately enough given that Spielberg is the executive producer, remind the audience a lot of the clans from Stand by Me and The Goonies, two films that successfully marry one-dimensional characters with independent issues and well-constructed narrative. Neither of those films are astounding because of the acting or depth of character. Both of them are classic because they tell a decent, fun tale.
All in all Super 8 is a fun film with tense, funny, and semi-touching moments; at the same time, it is also representative of a recurring issue of J.J. Abrams: the inability to close. It is clear that he is rather genius at generating ideas with fascinating premises: Lost, Alias, and the Star Trek reboot. At the same time, the content gets a bit away from itself and crumbles a bit toward the end. Lost ended with philosophical jargon that didn’t necessarily match the narrative or answer any questions that were major plot points throughout the series. The close of Alias was rather lackluster and while I enjoyed Star Trek – much more than any of the original movies – the third act derived from time travel, a trope that is tricky to use and often becomes a convenient exit strategy rather than a relevant or necessary one.
The same dissolution happens in Super 8. Once the audience understands the reasons for the train crash, why the military has swooped in to handle the containment of debris, the contents of the train, and the animosity between Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard) and Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler), twenty of the last thirty minutes are compacted with unnecessary tropes that seem to have been thrown in solely to reach a certain number of minutes. The inclusion of a love triangle between three twelve year olds is forced and comes out of nowhere, being impelled by Charles’ sudden anger towards Joe, culminating with the ever-famous and often detrimental line “You just don’t get it, do you?!” The same can be said for the sudden whitewashing of animosity between Louis and Jackson. They hated each other for eighty minutes, but now they are the perfect team. I suppose this shows that in a time of potential intergalactic conflict, it’s best not to be filled with hatred, but this hatred was pervasive throughout the film until it was miraculously erased like soccer injuries vanquished instantly via an aerosol topical analgesic.
Perhaps it would be too Twilight Zone-y or Amazing Stories-ish to have a movie come in at less than eighty minutes, but Super 8 could have benefited from it inasmuch as the audience would have remained caught up in the action and the process of dealing with the secretive, antipathetic military and the subterranean-dwelling creature rather than being sent off on tangents that didn’t add anything but time.
