Simon Dillon reviews the film

2011 seems to have been the year to nostalgically celebrate the early films of Steven Spielberg. With Paul and Attack the Block paying homage in their own way, JJ Abrams' Super 8 comes with the unique distinction of actually having the great man involved as executive producer.

The plot (set in 1979) was originally conceived as a personal film inspired by Abrams childhood making low budget movies starring his friends with his super 8mm camera. When he persuaded Spielberg to get involved (who also made similar 8mm movies in his formative years) the plot was combined with that of an alien/monster movie. The resultant film details the efforts of Jackson Lamb (Joel Courtney), who is helping his best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) and his other friends make an 8mm zombie movie. During the shoot they procure the assistance of Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), and she and Jackson develop an adolescent attraction, much to the chagrin of Charles who secretly fancies her himself. Jackson and Alice bond over the fact that both have lost their mothers, and indeed this could have been a fascinating study in the affect of absent mothers on children.

However, the sci-fi element then comes crashing (literally) into the story in the form of a truly spectacular train crash that rivals such cinematic derailments as The Fugitive, not to mention The Greatest Show on Earth (which this is a deliberate homage to as it was the first film Spielberg saw at the cinema as a child). The problem with the resultant alien plot is that it doesn't really mesh with the personal and undeniably affecting story of the children spending their summer making the 8mm zombie movie. Frankly Abrams is playing a very dangerous game here. Any film that evokes Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. so directly is setting itself up to be judged by exceptionally severe standards. There is a real danger that audiences will simply wish they were watching those undisputed masterpieces instead. It's one thing to try and make the film feel of that era rather than about it, but with so many shots carefully constructed to look as though they had been cut out of Close Encounters and spliced into this film, the homage is ultimately self-defeating.

That all said, and in spite of the afore mentioned awkward mixture of the personal coming-of-age plot and the sci-fi plot, the film works reasonably well on its own terms if you can divorce it entirely from the subject matter that inspired it (which I can't). The performances are uniformly excellent, especially from the children. Elle Fanning in particular I suspect will be a name to watch. Here she is simply wonderful; an excellent actress playing an excellent actress. There are a number of highly amusing scenes that riff on this as Charles and the boys go about making their movie. Incidentally, the zombie movie they are making is shown in full during the end credits, so it is worth staying for that. Clearly Abrams was just as inspired by the George A Romero zombie movies he sneaked into as a child, as well as the Spielberg pictures he saw legitimately. Technically the film is very well put together, and it hardly needs saying that the visual effects are spectacular.

It also worth noting that in keeping with the tone of E.T., The Goonies, and other non-Spielberg films about children made in the 80s like Stand by Me, the kids in this film swear a bit. Personally I don't have a huge problem with this as it adds an air of realism, though I do wish they would use s-words and the like rather than misuse of Jesus name. There is also some drug use (though it is shown in a negative light) and the film has some good jumps and scares at times, so I would personally suggest this isn't one to take the under 12s to (unlike say Thor and Captain America, where I would thoroughly recommend parents everywhere defy the nannying BBFC 12A certificate).

Some have claimed that JJ Abrams is the natural successor to Steven Spielberg, and there is a real sense with this film that Spielberg himself is passing the torch of his former style. But the truth is there is no successor to Steven Spielberg in the same way that there is no successor to William Shakespeare. Abrams should concentrate on evolving his own style, and although he has made some fine pictures, with the arguable exception of the Star Trek reboot he has yet to make something as groundbreaking as the films of the great man himself (in cinema at any rate - I'm not counting TV series Lost here).

With all the above in mind, Super 8 is an interesting, nostalgic, diverting piece of work, but it is uneven and certainly not the masterpiece some have foolishly claimed it to be.