Super, Smashing, Great… Super 8.

Super 8

Since Friday night, unusually, I’ve done three different entertainment related activities, I have taken in one theatre trip and two films at the cinema… I’ve still yet to write about any of them, so I’d better get started…

I’ll do a separate review on each, despite my temptation to throw everything into one epic post, since that wouldn’t actually make a great deal of sense. The most recent and therefore, most fresh in my mind was Super 8, J J Abrams and Steven Spielberg’s latest Sci-Fi cum children coming of age action flick. I’ve never done a film review before, in fact I’m reviewing most things for the first time for this blog and, with that in mind, I may give away more than you want to know. If you think I have, let me know and I’ll try and be a bit more reserved with the next one. Otherwise, read on…

We all know Spielberg, we all know the guy can make a kids movie, with E.T., Hook and The Goonies amongst his credits we also know they are films which are capable of entertaining us whether we’re 13 or 33. Finally we know the man has a formula. Yes, there is the standard hero story and yes like every film he slavishly follows it, but Spielberg’s formula, is more complex, it’s devilishly clever in fact, so clever I am almost blown away by its sheer genius… Include a fat kid and, if possible, find an excuse to point and laugh at him. Within minutes of the film starting, I am able relax into my seat, re-assured that this time, things will be no different.

Now, for something a bit different, throw a bit of Abrams into the mix and see what happens. Two genuine movie heavyweights pooling their collective resources, experience and knowledge to produce a genuinely scary young person’s film? This could be good.

As it turns out, it’s great.

All the required ingredients are there, characters you can relate to, an underlying story of romance (extra points for making said romance of the forbidden Romeo and Juliet kind) and a giant great big monster. Now, I nearly wasn’t going to mention the monster, the trailers don’t really show it and perhaps it would ruin it for you.  However, if we exclude Star Trek, which is rather more prescriptive and look back at the stuff Mr Abrams is best known for then immediately we have some clues. Take Lost, the TV series which spent a long time confusing people before introducing… a huge monster, a few of them actually. Then there’s Cloverfield, the film which no-one was allowed to speak about before it was released, barely had a trailer and involved the concept of being filmed on a handheld camera before WHAM, a giant monster comes crashing through the city. Sensing a theme much?

In reality then, I walked in not knowing what to expect, when in reality the two main forces behind this film immediately fell back on what they know best, fat kids and scary monsters.

Despite the formulaic nature of the film, both in terms of the overall themes and specific details it’s a genuinely entertaining picture. Special effects are generally barely worth a mention unless they are either exceptionally good, or terrible. In this case we saw a monumental train crash and a cleverly introduced monster, which you don’t get to see eye to eye until very near the end. Other than the general disaster movie/alien invasion, we are provided with a well constructed story surrounding the fat kid and his friends making their own movie, (giving the film its own title) which is believable and at times touching. This is topped off with our story of young, forbidden love between the children of two warring parents. With the film set some time in the late 70s or early 80s it’s easy to buy the innocence of the children in a story which today could lead to only one thing – teenage pregnancy. However, the story, at least the aspects not directly related to giant monsters or disaterous train wrecks almost feels autobiographical. You could believe a young Spielberg or Abrams was running around corralling a group of friends into different scenes and shots almost oblivious to the world carrying on around them and it certainly gave the film a reality amongst the fiction.

Finally, I should also mention that for once, we have a film which does not feel like the start of a longer story, doesn’t feel like its sole purpose is to set the scene for the next film and hasn’t left us hanging, waiting to find out what will happen next. This is a true stand-alone tale and it is better for it, which is becoming all too rare.

If you accept the fact that originality is almost dead in the world of cinema, particularly when budgets are big and expectations are high, this film is genuinely entertaining and will have a real appeal for all ages. The 12A rating certainly reflects the film’s scarier aspects and I wouldn’t suggest this is a film which is appropriate for under 12s. It’s been out for a few weeks, so I’d suggest getting down to see it if you haven’t already, particularly if you have an Orange Wednesday, or O2 Priority thing going to waste.

4/5

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