Super 8 Review

• 13th Dec 2011

They say “Words can’t describe”… but as this is a written review – I’m going to have to try. Now let’s be fair to JJ Abrams. He has conceived of a loving call back to those early “Spielbergian” films full of magic and wonder mixed in with day to day drama.

In a small town America, a group of youngsters are making their own zombie flick on Super 8 film, and one night are witness to the world’s most over the top and ludicrous train crash ever. According to this film, the truck it hits blows up on impact (and yet still doesn’t kill the occupant?) which then  causes about 52 carriages to suddenly all unbuckled, fly into the air, explode, tumbled, explode again, flip, spin, blow up one more time and narrowly miss our scampering group as they try to flee (er, into the middle of the wreckage).

Now some of the shots in this sequence are well designed, others don’t hide the budget so well, but overall you suddenly feel like they went too far already and you are in a Michael Bay film. Oh yes and out of one of the carriages – a beast of some sort escapes!

Enter the army who start to shut down the town one stage at a time in order to retrieve all of their evidence and the loose monster that is randomly attacking the town’s folk. In amongst all this is a quite riveting modern drama about loss and family and not to mention forgiveness. Sadly it never quite gels together with the space beastie episode we are trapped with. The action may look impressive in places, but it just is too impersonal for us to care what happens there. What is riveting is the drama between the kids and their parents all beautifully played by a very talented young and adult cast.

My only other gripe is JJ Abram’s already overly famous use of lens flares. I’m wondering why this is such a clever thing to use, or how it makes commentary on anything real when all it seems to do here is annoy and distract. I’m not adverse to the occasional mistake on camera with the lighting. But when it happens this often it really jars your planned entertainment.

Abrams perhaps had the right ideas for this film, but didn’t develop one sufficiently enough to incorporate it into the other. Hiding these cracks with OTT action and scare set pieces didn’t help.

Steven Hurst