“Super 8” is definitely a summer blockbuster.
Director J. J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg brought together family issues, young love and friendship, with a heavy taste of alien invasion onto the big screen.
From visual effects to sound engineering, the movie is top notched based on a sci-fi theme.
The idea of “metafilm” (a film within a film) is brilliant. As the title of the movie suggests, “Super 8” is actually short of Super 8 mm film, a motion picture format released by Eastman Kodak in 1965.
Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and his friends kicked-off their summer time working on their own Super 8 short film, “The Case,” as directed by Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths). They hoped their production will be featured in the upcoming Super 8 film festival.
The thrilling tragedy began when a train clashed with a pick-up truck at the train station where the kids were shooting one of their newly-added scenes. Once they found out the driver of the truck to be their science teacher Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), they embarked on a journey trying to figure out the context of this questionable incident.
Much of Steven Spielberg’s styles were observed in the entire movie: the heavy metal background sound effects, suspense, and the transformer-like cubes.
The movie has not only caught the breath of its audience by unveiling the face of the invading alien, but also set them into a mysterious mood regarding the death of Joe’s mother.
As the story moves on, audience learns the struggles between the Lamb’s and Dainard’s. Also revealing is the effort of Dr. Woodward in freeing the alien instead of killing it, as assumed by many in the public and the U.S. Air Force.
While the city is being evacuated, the kids decided to help save the alien-abducted people by researching about the alien in Dr. Woodward’s office. Joe and his friend then arrived at the creature’s nest where it kept all its abductees and “machines.”
An unexplained moment took place where Joe met the creature vis-à-vis at the bottom of its nest. The alien seemed to understand Joe, like a mother speaking to her child.
The whole mystery was finally resolved when the town gathers to witness the blast-off of the alien-built spaceship (using all household appliances “stolen” from the town).
Unlike most movies pushed to large screen this year, “Super 8” doesn’t have strong (or obvious) moral values that audience could take home with. Instead, it gives them a pinch of bravery as shown from within the kids and how they handle family cum friendship issues.
In some ways, the adults in the movie appeared to be pretty vulnerable and ignorant about the whole tragedy.
On the whole, “Super 8” taught its audience the importance of courage and friendship.
Having said, “Super 8” is indeed the movie to watch for a mid-summer sensation.
If not for its compelling special effects, the 80’s nostalgic music and technology shown in the movie may be the other great selling points of the production.
RATING: 8/10
Written for the SCSU University Chronicle. All rights reserved.
