Writers: J.J. Abrams
Released: June 10, 2011
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Budget: $50,000,000
Gross: $259,936,677
Production Companies: Paramount Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Bad Robot
Runtime: 112 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Sound mix: SDDS, DTS, Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Synopsis:
Super 8 takes place in a small town of roughly 12,000 people.
The film begins with a young man, Joe Lamb(Joel Courtney) mourning the death of his mother.
Then a few months later his best friend Charles Kaznyk(Riley Griffiths) decides to shoot a zombie thriller to enter into a film festival. Charles asks Alice Dainard(Elle Fanning) to help them shoot a scene for the film.
The group of friends then go to the train station to film the scene. While going over lines and rehearsing the kids realize that a train is approaching. They cease this moment to film the scene and create what Charles calls "production value."While filming the scene a truck approaches the train head-on. The kids see this and quickly run for cover.
The collision with the truck and the train causes the train to derail. Once the coast is clear they approach the truck and come to find they're science teacher was the person driving the truck. Dr.Woodward(Glynn Turman) urges them to flee and never speak of what they saw again.
After the event Alice and Joe develop a sort of romance for each other. Despite being told not to see each other, like Romeo and Juliet, they still keep contact. Meanwhile strange things begin to happen in the town. First, the air force arrives and gathers cubes, like the one Joe picks up and takes home after the event. Then all the local dogs go missing and are found but outside of the county, in surrounding counties. Car engines are being stolen, toasters, microwaves, anything with metal goes missing. Even some townspeople disappear. Alice is taken right in front of her father's face.
The town is then evacuated into an air force base. There Joe finds out that Alice was taken from her her father by the alien. He and his friends escape in search of Alice. First they go back to the school and find footage of what has been reaping havoc on the town. It was an alien. An alien that has been held hostage by the air force and tested on.
However, the air force catches up to them and confiscates all their stuff. On the way back to the base the alien attacks the bus and kills the members of the air force on it. The kids fortunately were able to escape. Joe and his friend Cary (Ryan Lee) go to the town cemetery where Joe had heard strange noises the night before. It is there where they find the cave in which the alien was working on building it's ship to go home.
Cary distracts the alien with fireworks while Joe saves Alice. The alien catches on and chases the three of them. They come to a dead end and Joe bravely tells the alien to leave. The alien understands and returns to building and finishing the ship.
The cubes that the air force was gathering earlier reveal their genius as they are used to create anything. In this case, they gather to create the ship. This attracts all metal in the area, including Joe's locket of his mom to which he holds onto throughout the entire film. He grabs the locket before it reaches the ship but decides to let go.
The ship takes off and the alien is finally able to return home.
Commentary:
The film covered very familiar territory. There were elements similar to the stories of E.T., Cloverfield, and Romeo and Juliet. Although, the film stands alone as a piece of art and it did explore uncharted territory. What I appreciated most about this 2011 blockbuster was the Romeo and Juliet-like romance between Joe and Alice and the special effects. The special effects mimicked that of an 80's film which felt refreshing. Also, Joel and Elle were exceptional in their roles as Joe and Alice.
But what I'd like to focus on in this section of the critique is the theme of isolation introduced in the beginning of the film.
The first shot of the first scene is a long shot of Joe's house and the swing set next to it. The shot only includes one person and that person is Joe. He sits on the swing set alone and mourns his mother's death while looking at her locket. This scene exhibits irony. We see swing sets as a toy as something for a child to have fun on but in this scene there is no fun being had on the swing set. This reminds the audience that children do not usually lose their parents to death. Children are supposed to be having fun and enjoying their innocence but here Joe sits upset and alone on the swing set.
Meanwhile, people in his house attending his mother's wake discuss Joe and whether they think he will be okay. The separation between Joe and the people inside his house, including his mother's body, portray how alone and isolated Joe feels.
Then Louis Dainard's car enters the scene. Louis is the man who Joe's mother was covering a shift for when the incident happened and she died. Louis attempts to speak to his father at the wake but is told to leave. The men get into an altercation inside the house and Joe's father quickly escorts him out of the house into his police car. The only human contact Joe experiences in this scene is when his father tells him that he will be back later. The cop car exits the scene once again leaving Joe to mourn alone.
Although the film does address the theme many more times throughout it's 112 minute running time, this scene was the most important in portraying the theme of isolation. It is the first scene we meet Joe, the films protagonist, and it lets us in on how he feels right from the get go.
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