‘Super 8′: It’s not just the special effects
Nobody said growing up is easy. "Super 8" characters Elle Fanning (as Alice Dainard), Joel Courtney (Joe Lamb), Gabriel Basso (Martin), Riley Griffiths (Charles), Ryan Lee (Cary) and Zach Mills (Preston) don't know that — yet.
By they will, soon, when an oncoming train crashing into a pick-up truck puts them right smack in the eye of a storm. And they're never the same again.
Steven Spielberg's "Super 8" makes them see the world — and themselves—in a whole new light. But first, they have to go through fire and storm, the way the sick must swallow a bitter pill before they get healed.
The teens must face a scary creature that tears people and homes in their neighborhood apart. The boys must outdo each other for the love of a single girl — Alice. They and their friends must grapple with issues about warring parents who get in the way of what and who they love.
The parents, in turn, have their own demons to conquer. They nurse old grudges which they pass on to their respective children.
The train crash turns their world upside down, literally and figuratively. It comes at a time when they need to be jolted out of their senses to see things from a better light. And they are.
Suddenly, teens realize their dads are not that cruel, after all. The two dads in "Super 8" finally accept the fact that their respective son and daughter won't plunge headlong into hell if they link up with each other.
All these happen while the city is falling apart and an alien made of steel is terrorizing people. There's an irony there. The city is in shambles, yet the some of the residents are slowly picking up the pieces of their broken life.
That's hope — strong and powerful — for you.
It shows in a scene where two desperate fathers search for their children amidst the carnage and chaos around them. It shines beneath the metallic eyes of an alien who has ripped many people apart and threatens to do the same thing to Joel Courtney.
It throbs in the heart of a teenage boy who retrieves his late mother's locket from the body of a dead soldier. And it pierces through the steel frame of a spaceship that lands on earth.
"Super 8" may not have teary scenes galore to qualify it as an out-and-out drama. Nor does it have those mushy sequences that make it a romantic film for today's teenagers.
But it has enough heart to make you feel more, and feel better at the end of the movie.
Like Spielberg's earlier hero, E.T., the stars of "Super 8," — the alien included — show a humanity that make them every inch like you and me.
Watch it for its spectacular effects. But watch out, too, for those touching messages that take the rough edges off those gory, scary scenes.
Like the teens in the movie, you'll end up feeling different, more human and less alienated in a city that has become one concrete jungle for most.
