Once upon a time there was a CSULB film school dropout who was living proof that success in institutionalized education is not directly proportional to success in the real world. He left film school to actually start making movies. His first successful film, 'Duel' was about a business man driving out to Bakersfield or something and being hunted by a psychotic truck driver along the way. I know it doesn't sound like much but it is really a great flick. If you're looking for a Steven Spielberg movie that doesn't have annoying children in it, 'Duel' is a great place to start. Steven Spielberg is perhaps best known for E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial which he directed from an entirely ripped off screenplay. Spielberg's latest film (Producer Credit Only) was written and directed by J.J. Abrams (Star Trek 09)...but who are we kidding? 'Super 8' is overrun by sloppy, anachronistic, 1980s Steven Spielberg fingerprints. And that's a bad thing.
"Stealing" from his own films would be one thing, but this is done for some silly, awkward attempt at nostalgia or something. Like I'm supposed to make the deliberate obvious connection to 'E.T.' at the end of the movie and say a "oh how clever, that makes me remember my childhood and feel all good inside."
But it doesn't work. Instead of being a charming tribute to the magic and wonder we (some of us) felt when we first saw films like E.T. and Indiana Jones...it just comes across and cheap and awkward. You can't really revisit an outdated film style without being just a little bit cynical...but Spielberg/Abrams don't seem to care. Obviously if it worked in 1982, it can work in 2011...only it can't. Not if you're so obsessed with paying homage to your own career that you forget to make a movie.
Does J.J. Abrams really have to put gigantic, distracting, lens flares in every movie? Does every depiction of the U.S. military in a Steven Spielberg film have to be laughably negative? Why do scary military guys always go around in groups of 50 while chasing you with flashlights? Does the monster REALLY have to flip the vehicle on its side with the 12 year olds inside? ...again? Hey asshole, remember Jurassic Park? REMEMBER IT?
'Super 8' isn't a film that I can entirely hate (which makes things all the worse). Watching a bunch of awkward preteens try to make a zombie movie while the world around them starts to fall apart is really interesting and fun ....or at least it could have been....if Abrams and Spielberg had actually told that story.
Instead, the entire thing is about an alien who just wants to go home...strangely familiar?
"Fools! Bureaucratic Fools! They don't know what they've got there!"
"Well I know what I've got here...."
...Another Spiel-turd.
