Super 8 (2011)

Directed by: J. J. Abrams

I know he’s only the producer, but Super 8 finds us in classic Spielberg territory: 1970s small-town America.  In an efficient scene-setting, we learn that Joe (Joel Courtney) has just lost his mom to an industrial accident, and his deputy-sheriff dad (Kyle Chandler) blames no-goodnik Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard).  Four months later, Joe is one of five kids making a zombie movie using the eponymous home movie kit.  Trouble is, one of the other kids is Alice (Elle Fanning), daughter of Louis.  Each of the dysfunctional dads (the one a self-hating drunk, the other a cold, angry shell, unable to hug his son) is opposed to the two kids being near each other – but when a mysterious train crashes outside the town,  their irritation gets swamped by some bad-ass alien trouble.

It’s been said that Super 8 is some kind of remake of ET, but that’s unfair.  There’s certainly some serious homaging going on here, and not just to ET – the strangest reference must surely be Elle Fanning’s nod to Mulholland Drive(2001) – but Super 8 is its own movie, though only just.  If it’s a little thin at first, it soon turns into an effective sci-fi actioner, delivering thrills and tension – right up to the end when it thins out again.  The problem, I think, is the alien, with whom the kids (and, vicariously, we) never really develop a proper relationship.  And part of the reason for this is that the whole thing feels a bit rushed: there’s too much breathless mayhem in train stations, towns and tunnels, and not enough bonding.  Perhaps with a different balance of time, this could have been a great movie – as it is, it’s merely a good one.