Super 8

Another summer movie I saw recently is Super 8. This one came fairly highly recommended. I had heard positive reviews and had friends comment on what a pleasure it was to see. Then another friend posted a comment on Facebook checking the generally overwhelming praise. He still seemed to think it was good, but not the greatest summer movie of our time. I was glad to read a few remarks going against the tide of praise to lower my expectations before I went to see it.

I didn’t go to it when it was still in its initial run; instead, I waited until it was at the second run theater at a nearby mall where matinee tickets are only two dollars and evening shows are four. I went to the 4:30 showing, and my ticket and a soda together cost less than the price of a ticket by itself at a first run theater. Of course, the sound system was a bit low tech, leaving the whole movie a bit muffled, and the seats have seen better days, but in order to save a few dollars, I’m willing to put up with the lesser accommodations, especially if it’s a movie I’m somewhat indifferent about or one that I’m seeing to stay out of the heat and kill a summer afternoon rather than because I’m desperate to see the movie itself. I saw Bridesmaids at this theater a couple weeks ago (and I still need to write about that one), and if I bother to see The Hangover 2, it’ll be either at this theater or on TV. But with Super 8, I actually wished I’d seen it at a nicer theater because it’s a movie that is well made and engaging enough to deserve the full theatrical treatment projected onto a big screen with high quality surround sound.

Let me not get carried away, though. The movie is good enough to deserve to been seen in all its glory, but that doesn’t mean it’s the greatest summer movie ever. Basically, it’s intended to feel like an old Steven Spielberg film, and it does achieve some of that feeling, but it also left me with the desire to go back and watch Jurassic Park and E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Super 8 is good, and it does capture some of the essence of those wonderful Spielberg films, but it also feels a bit like an imitation of them, a forgery of a master artist’s work.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the basic story, I’ll recap here. It’s 1979 in a small Ohio town. Our hero, Joe, is dealing with the death of his mother in a steel mill accident and the newfound reality of living alone with his father, who is unprepared to be a single parent. Summer vacation is starting, and Joe and his best friend Charles are excited to have more time to work on their 8mm zombie movie that they plan to enter in a local film contest (Joe handles makeup and special effects; Charles directs). They sneak out of the house one night to film on a train station platform, and as they film, a train derails. The Army comes to town to clean things up and investigate, and the mystery really begins: what or who was on that train? Why is the Army keeping things quiet? Why do all the dogs in town suddenly want to run away?

Strangely enough, the same elements that work as some of Super 8’s great strengths are also weaknesses. Charles, the young film director, talks about changing his script to add more story because that is what will move an audience. He read an article in a moviemaking magazine about the need for more than just special effects and thrilling adventure. So Charles writes in a wife for the main character, so the audience will understand what’s at stake for him. Charles also realizes that in order to stand a chance at making his movie stand out in the competition, he needs “production value.” So he films as the train passes by and ultimately derails so his film will have more going on than just kids standing around talking. Later, he films in front of the derailed train and near a group of Army guys. The same elements that Charles recognizes as essential to a good film are present throughout Super 8. The dead mother makes the audience more invested in Joe’s character. The conflicts between parents and children add more emotion. The derailing train sequence is a great example of production value, as are the other top notch special effects throughout the rest of the movie.

So if what we go to movies for is to have our emotions played with and to be awed with production value, then Super 8 is a great film. However, I sometimes felt like it was all a bit shallow, like J. J. Abrams, the writer-director, was really just a grown up version of Charles. All he wants to do is have fun making a movie, not because he has a story he feels utterly compelled to tell, but rather because he loves movies and wants to make one like the kind he loves. So the special effects and emotional twists come across as a bit manipulative rather than authentic. Just as Charles wanted to make his version of a Romero film, Abrams wanted to make his version of a Spielberg. I imagine him working on the screenplay and trying to figure out what would make this movie stand out, and just as Charles thinks, “I’ll give the guy a wife,” Abrams thinks, “I’ll give the kid a dead mom.”

It’s hard to explain exactly why I find it a bit dissatisfying. Overall, it is very well made. The audience is as skillfully manipulated as in just about any other movie. And I enjoyed the experience on a whole. Yet I also left feeling a bit empty, like this was only a great movie if I didn’t think too much about it. Or maybe it’s as simple as I mentioned earlier: the move left me really wanting to watch E.T. or Jurassic Park. Super 8 is a great example of just how good Spielberg is, though I can’t explain why he’s so much better than almost everybody else.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

In the past week I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One and Two. Both are good. They’re entertaining and satisfying conclusions to the series. I’ve been a Harry Potter fan for years now, although I was a bit slow to get into them initially.

I remember the first time I ever heard of Harry Potter was when I was in college. I was taking a class on Tolkien (which, unfortunately, I had to drop after the first class because it was an evening class and I was cast in a play that semester so had to attend evening rehearsals). The professor asked if any of us had read the Harry Potter books. There weren’t more than two or three of the books out at that time, and none of the movies had been made yet. I had no idea what Harry Potter even was, and neither did most of the rest of the class. It seems funny to think back on that now since Harry Potter is probably one of the best-known characters in the world.

Within the next couple of years, I heard more about Harry Potter. My father is a pastor, so I heard reference to the controversy within the conservative Christian community about how dangerous it was to allow children to read books about witches. My parents picked up the books to see what the hubbub was about and discovered how enjoyable they were. At some point, when I was on summer vacation maybe, I borrowed the audiobooks from my mom and got caught up in the fun stories (I still think audiobook is the way to experience Harry Potter; Jim Dale is an amazing reader). The first movie came out the Thanksgiving after I finished college, and I was living back at my parents’ house, so we all saw it together (there’s really nothing that makes one recognize his failure to truly enter adulthood like being twenty-two, living with his parents, and going with them to see a children’s movie). That first movie was decent if a bit too long and slow.

The next movie was likewise acceptable, but nothing particularly special. But by the third movie, the series really took off. And the final two really cement the franchise’s place in film history. It’s truly a phenomenal achievement to have made eight consistently high-quality films, especially when the beginning of the series is the weakest point.

I don’t really have too much to say about these final two films. I’m sure anybody reading this either already knows how good these movies are or doesn’t care and isn’t interested in the first place. There seems to be little middle ground with Harry Potter.

The one negative comment I’ll share about Deathly Hallows Part Two is that it has jumped onto the 3D bandwagon, which I feel is a mistake. It’s tough to know whether 3D is really the future of cinema or just a short-term fad. I suspect it’s a fad. I’ve seen a few movies in 3D, but typically I’d just as soon save the extra money and watch it in 2D. I think in the best cases 3D adds little, but in the worst cases it is an annoying distraction. I watched Deathly Hallows in 2D, but there were a few moments in the film where I was distracted by elements that seemed to be deliberately included to take advantage of 3D. There’s a roller coaster-like sequence in the goblin bank that is filmed like it’s supposed to simulate being on a ride at a theme park. Then a dragon lunges straight at the camera. I’m sure it looks cool in 3D, but the problem is that these moments distract from the story. I’d rather have filmmakers simply tell their story without trying to make things cool or to feel the need to use new technology simply because it exists.