I saw today J.J Abrams' new movie "Super 8". The movie is produced by Steven Spielberg and as we will see there are good reasons for that. In the middle of the 1970's a group of young teenagers, movie fans, are filming a short horror movie - at a time of the now extinct Super 8 cameras. They will be the witness of a major train accident while they're filming a sequence, and apparently it was not an ordinary train. The train was one of the U.S Air Force and "something" was moved in the middle of the night from a top secret army facility to another one.
I won't tell you more to don't spoil the storyline but to like the movie - and i liked it a lot - you must know that the whole movie is a tribute to the 1970's Spielberg's movies. The story, the photography of the movie and even the theme are all very "Spielbergian" and we understand instantly why Spielberg agreed to be the producer of Super 8. In fact, the whole movie could have been filmed by Steven, and if you want to enjoy it you really must remember this "tribute to the 70's".
For people of my generation it's very enjoyable as it is a kind of teleportation back in time but for young people who are born in early 1990's and who don't have necessarily the 1970's movie culture i'm curious to see if they will be sensitive to the stylization of "Super 8". You'll let me know if you liked it or not in the comments. And one last thing: all the effects are of course perfect, with a special mention to the train accident which is incredible!
Edited: Did you know that Leonard Nimoy appears in the movie? How about that another one of J.J Abrams’s Star Trek stars plays “the monster”? Did you spot the references in Super 8 to Lost, Alias and The Twilight Zone? Slash Film compiled 16 hidden easter eggs which can be found in the movie and you can read this HERE.
Below, the final trailer and a short video interview of Steven Spielberg.
Picture and trailer: copyright Paramount - Amblin Entertainment
It looks good. Unfortunately I'll have to wait until August to watch it in theatres here in Brazil!
ReplyDeleteI'm not particularly a big Spielberg fan, but I'm really a big fan of some of the movies he contributed to, like Jaws, Gremlins, Roger Rabbit, Raiders of the lost Ark, and, like it or not, he is a cinema legend.
Actually I may be too young for this movie - born in 1985. I was bored the entire film. It was already seen in tons of movies, so I don't think it is interesting to redo the kind of movie that was already done in the 70s.
ReplyDeleteGreat scene with the train, but did the accident needed to last 10 mn ? It looked like a nuclear attack
To anonymous: That's what i was afraid of, for young generations there might be not enough action scenes or new ideas in Super 8. But i still think that it's not the problem, that the goal was to do a movie exactly how it would have been done in the 70's, and on this point i think it's a success. If this movie would have been filmed in the 70's it would have ben exactly like that.
ReplyDeleteThe problem now - and Spielberg and Lucas contributed to this - is that modern audiences always needs "more", more special effects, more action scenes, etc... As i've said once to a friend "i think that young audiences will not be able anymore to appreciate a John ford movie, they'll probably find it slow or boring". But it's wrong, there is no films from Ford which are too slow or boring, not one! The problem is coming from the acceleraton of time in our society. It's a tragedy because you can't understand what life really is if you're going too fast, it's simply not possible, but that's how the world is going in our days.