Super 8-J.J. Abrams

Set in 1979, J.J. Abram’s Super 8 is filled with things that some audiences will never have heard of—Walter Cronkite, The Cars and the movie’s titular device, the Super 8 camera—but others will remember these relics of bygone days with great fondness and nostalgia. Along with all its ingredients of a summer blockbuster—heart-stopping action, endearing romance, an alien spaceship—Super 8 also takes time to reflect on a period in history when things were supposedly simpler.

At least that’s the impression that Abrams, who was coming of age at the time the movie is set, wants to give. His heroes are a pack of 12- and 13-year-olds (picture the goonies) who have embarked on a grand adventure together: the filming of a zombie movie to be entered in the town’s film festival. This cast of characters—the overbearing director, the crazy pyrotechnic, the self-conscious lead, the beautiful blonde and the courageous make-up artist—represents the film’s greatest triumph. They are a motley, if not nerdy, crew that is easy to like.

Their lives are far from carefree. The movie opens on a somber note, with the death of the mother of make-up artist and eventual hero Joe Lamb. A silver locket given to Joe’s mother by his father on the day of his birth is a recurring symbol of her absence and the toll her death has taken on Joe.

Joe’s best friend is a film buff and aspiring director. He has convinced a group of kids down at the school to join him in shooting a zombie movie, which he, as a regular Orson Welles, will write, produce and direct (he stops short of actually appearing in the film). For the film to be convincing, it has to be shot at night with no one around, so the gang elects to meet at the old rail station at midnight to film the scenes. One night, a train is derailed by a white pick-up truck and Joe and his friends are lucky to escape the wreckage alive. From there the movie trends toward the sort of high-drama summer blockbuster material you’ve glimpsed in previews: the army shows up, the town is evacuated, and a mysterious monster is reported to be lurking about.

The film has its fair share of action and surprises, and there are a few touching moments scattered here and there. But it fails to live up to its grand aspirations. Abrams no doubt wished to rekindle the magic of some of his producer Steven Spielberg’s greatest cinematic creations, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T. But he falls short: Super 8 fails to inspire awe or amazement, lacking the magical sequences or transcendent finales of Spielberg’s alien epics. Super 8 might be better than most of the movies you will see during this otherwise lackluster summer, but it will still leave something to be desired.