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Jun 10, 2011 By Lauren Barbato Web Exclusive

Production value. It’s the term most common in Super 8, J.J. Abrams’ latest supernatural epic, uttered throughout the first act as if it were a mantra that Abrams fears he—or his audience—will forget like Jeff Goldblum did in Annie Hall.

Although behind the camera, Abrams manifests in Charlie, an obsessive and overweight burgeoning film director struggling to produce a zombie movie for a local festival with his rag-tag crew of scrawny teenage friends, including the soulful Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and his crush, the equally as soulful Alice Dainard (an always magnificent Elle Fanning). At first, the production value is elementary—firecrackers and cherry bombs, produced by resident metal-mouthed pyrotechnic, Cary (a tension-relieving Ryan Lee).

But this is 1979 after all, only a few years after Steven Speilberg (who serves as executive producer on Super 8) was forced to use the camera as Bruce’s POV in Jaws because of the malfunctioning mechanical shark, and re-shoot an oceanic scene in editor Verna Taylor’s swimming pool. In the ‘70s, production value was guided by—and ultimately, at the mercy of— imagination.

The teens of Super 8 possess this imagination for the first half of this thriller-turned-family film, radiating a charming, wide-eyed wonder. And so, too, does Abrams.

Super 8 opens with a rustic yet vibrant portrait of Lillian, Ohio, an unassuming mill town recently shaken by the untimely death of Joe’s mother, a mill worker and wife to deputy sheriff Jackson Lamb (a lackluster Kyle Chandler). Joe finds solace not through his grieving father but Charlie’s film, stealing off in the quiet depths of night to a middle-of-nowhere train station at the edge of town.

There, the crew film a tearful “love” scene, which would have been tender if it weren’t for the sudden wail of a train rolling through. Instead of waiting for the train to pass, Charlie screams—that’s right—“Production value!” and they keep the camera rolling.

Well, kid, you got the production value you wished for. Or, if you’re Abrams, you paid for.

The train derails, one steely unit at a time, as strange, monochromatic Rubix cubes—as well as some creature much more menacing—are unleashed from the cargo hold. It’s a fiery thunderstorm of CGI for a solid five minutes.

Super 8 is a grand entrance into the season of blockbusters, a bold display of limitless digital feats and decibel-pushing sound effects that leave you yelling louder than your grandfather. As far as the remaining summer pipeline is currently slated, this might be the most enticing blockbuster of the season.

But as the “what the hell is that?” creature continues to terrorize the town through action sequences that seek to one-up each other in style rather than suspense, it’s clear this isn’t Spielberg’s 1979. It’s 2011 disguised behind mop haircuts, muted pastels, Blondie, and a Super 8 camera that eventually succumbs to the monster that is IMAX. Thus begins the descent of Super 8—both the camera itself and the magic of Abrams’ storytelling.

Like he’s shown in his previous cinematic feats (Star Trek, Mission Impossible III), Abrams proves once again to be a visual master, executing sequences so flawlessly that the few screams of the audience seem almost choreographed. But as a screenwriter, he’s painfully derivative—and uncharacteristically so.

As a writer, Abrams typically ups the ante of supernatural weirdness. In Super 8, he dilutes it, almost into obscurity. The payoff of the creature and the role of the camera is not enough to satisfy the CGI exhibitions and the screams they elicited. Nor does it sustain the emotional resonance, which rang so honestly as the film’s beginning. Abrams fights for it at the end, but unfortunately you can’t put a price tag on heart.

Perhaps Abrams needs the limited budget and structural confines of television—which, ironically, is considered the writer’s world. Or perhaps it’s because of the moviemaking giant with which he shares the movie poster. Super 8, the more it plays out, feels like a lazy homage to Spielberg, dipping dangerously into the plot conventions of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the compassionate territory of E.T. Physically, the extraterrestrial here shares similar mannerisms with the snarling T-Rex from Jurassic Park, with a sequence closely aligned to the classic jeep episode. But Abrams is not Spielberg (and, to be fair, Spielberg is not Abrams) and why Abrams felt compelled to follow a bit too closely to his predecessor is the real mystery of Super 8.

The end credits are perhaps the most refreshing part of Super 8. The zombie movie is finished, shot on that elusive grainy film. It’s simple yet delightful, creating suspense through what remains to be seen. The heart’s there, even if the production value isn’t. (www.super8-movie.com)

Author rating: 5/10