Super 8

It seems at first that this film sits uncomfortably between several genres or approaches: it mixes elements of horror, emotional drama, comedy, sci-fi and the monster movie, is aimed at adults and kids, and is both postmodern whilst being nostalgic.  This doesn’t appear to make any sense, and yet it does. J. J. Abrams has created something almost entirely new with this film, but I don’t think it’s an experiment that can be repeated. This is like a kids’ film for adults. Or rather, a film for adults who were kids when these movies came out: E.T., Flight of The Navigator, Explorers, The Goonies, and The Last Starfighter. It follows similar lines to these yet obviously ironically, now being set thirty years in the past where those were contemporary. It is also a far more serious, and at times frightening film. Like those films, like indeed all great action films, the main drive of the movie is the emotional development of the characters. It overtakes the terrifying events around them and very neatly, perhaps too neatly, provides a resolution to the whole drama. What I did miss was how the small scale charm with which the film starts, following its predecessors, is swept away, especially towards the end. This is the temptation of the relative ease of modern special effects, perhaps. Like all monster movies, the suspense is better than the explanation. I also regretted how the role of the Super 8 film itself became relatively insignificant, when it could have been (and perhaps was originally intended to be) the crucial element of the movie. Anyway, I don’t know what people who haven’t seen those original films might think of this, but for those of us who have, it’s unmissable.