Super 8 is 8 Loads of Crap

Fuck me drunk!

Super 8 is a sloppy, boring, noxious piece of crap.

This represents an effort to recreate the dubious magic of films like The Goonies, Explorers, and ET. Unfortunately, the script feels like a first draft with all its inherent logic flaws and inconsistencies.

It's off to a rotten start with a spectacular but improbable train crash. The cause of the crash is a single vehicle placed in the path of a barreling locomotive. From the carnage that ensues, you'd think the train had hit a box of atomic bombs. A fallen Super-8 camera records something spidery emerging from the crash site. A bunch of annoying kids, the owners of the footage, begin to believe that something is fishy because the military invade their town in the wake of the crash.

Derivatives are piled on top of derivatives to form a vapid mash, and screaming contrivances run rampant across the screen. Every character seems to be in the right place at precisely the right time to witness stuff the script needs them to witness. Exposition is as heavy-handed as possible, and it gets even heavier when the kids find an old film that explains EVERYTHING to them.

This film's biggest crime is lazy writing. Aside from a tight opening five minutes, it plummets quickly into an abyss of pure crapola for the remainder of its endless running time -- its 90+ minutes feel more like 90 hours. And speaking of abysses, the film's creature digs itself one in an old shed. Because the abyss is so deep and so complex, a major question is hung like a dripping turd over the movie: What did the creature do with all the earth it excavated out of the ground? Eat it?

Seriously, this sucks worse than a drunk hooker, and its positive reviews can only be testament to how far critical standards have dropped.

In Praise of The Fox and the Child

If you're prepared to put Kate Winslet's redundant narration aside, you will enjoy Luc Jacquet's The Fox and the Child as much as I did.

In every other sense, this is a superb, beautifully produced movie about man's relationship with nature -- in this case, man is a young French girl, and nature is a female fox (a vixen).

Clearly, the intended audience for this film is children, so I'm not oblivious to why Kate Winslet is constantly articulating what we know our heroine is thinking. It's not that Kate doesn't do a good job; it's just that the adult inside me is less tolerant of pointless cinematic devices than the child.

Of course, in the French cut of the film, the little girl (voiced as an adult byAmbra Angiolini) now a mother, is relating the story to her son (Thomas Laliberte), who never appears in the English language version. Thus, the primary story is a narrated flashback of her childhood.

Set in a meadow not unlike the meadow of another French celebration of nature, Microcosmos, we are introduced to a young girl on school holidays who encounters an intense looking fox one day. Although the meeting is short, the fox, a very handsome creature, makes quite an impression on the lass. Before you can say transition, months go by, school holidays arrive, and the the young girl has become determined to forge a friendship with her clever, furry friend.

The beauty of The Fox and the Child is its simplicity and exquisite craft. Director Jacquet previously helmed March of the Penguins, an award winning documentary. In this follow-up outing, he has opted for a soft narrative feature, one designed to showcase the beauty of nature, but also the beauty of patience and tolerance. There is a message about love and possession that is deftly handled, and the film's climactic sequence is sure to ruffle most emotional feathers.

The technical credits (photography and music) are somewhat astonishing, as is the rich and vibrant sound mix. The meadow setting, through which we view the four seasons, feels like a world within a world. Actress Bertille Noel-Bruneau, a freck-faced redhead, makes for a feisty, stubborn little heroine, and is not hampered by overt cuteness.

I would place this comfortably on the shelf beside Fly Away Home, The Bear, Milo and Otis, The Silver Brumby, and Hachiko - A Dog's Story (a film I will write about at length shortly).

The French title, Le Renard et l'enfant, has a beautiful ring to it.