Kyle Chandler, who first rose to fame with the 1996 CBS series Early Edition, is capturing viewer attention again with his unconventional turn as Hal Jordan in Lanterns. But it’s not his first foray into the sci-fi genre, with a prominent role in the MonsterVerse franchise as Mark Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong, and a far, far less prominent one in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Most notably, three years after the latter (and 15 years before Lanterns), Chandler starred in Super 8, an underappreciated, Spielbergian sci-fi masterpiece that sees Chandler at his best. And it’s currently streaming for free on Pluto TV.
In ‘Super 8,’ a Group of Film-Making Teens Uncover a Dark Secret
It’s 1979 in Lillian, Ohio, and Deputy Sheriff Jack Lamb (Chandler) and his 14-year-old son Joe (Joel Courtney) are left to mourn the death of wife and mother Elizabeth in a workplace accident. It’s a death that should never have happened in the first place, with Elizabeth called in at the last minute to cover the shift of co-worker Louis (Ron Eldard), who called out with a hangover; Jack places the blame for his loss squarely on Louis’ shoulders. Joe, meanwhile, opts to remember his mother by tenaciously holding onto a locket carrying a photo of her and himself as a baby.
Four months pass, and Joe’s friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) has gathered Joe and four other friends, including Louis’ daughter Alice (Elle Fanning), to take part in the zombie movie he’s making for a Super 8 film competition. But while filming one night at a train station, they capture footage of a pickup truck crashing head-on into an approaching train, derailing it and forcing the teens to run. After the chaotic moment has subsided, they look around and find crates filled with strange white cubes. Peculiar, but so is the fact that the driver of the truck is their biology teacher, Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman). Despite his grave injuries, he points a gun in their direction and warns them to forget what they saw. With that they flee, just as Col. Nelec (Noah Emmerich) and his Air Force convoy descend on the location.
The friends would be glad to forget what they saw, but with strange things happening around town, Joe and Charles look at their footage and notice a large, alien creature escaping the train amid the mayhem. Worse yet, the creature has abducted Alice along with a number of other town citizens. The crew are determined to rescue Alice, so they break into Dr. Woodward’s trailer to see if they can find out what they’re up against. What they discover is mind-blowing. Dr. Woodward used to be a government researcher, and in 1963, he was called on by the Air Force to experiment on an alien whose ship, composed of the white cubes they found, crash-landed on Earth. During the experiments, the alien connected with Woodward psychically, convincing him to help it escape, an effort that was thwarted by Nelec. Now, after years of being held captive, the alien is free, and seemingly intent on exacting revenge on humanity. How can a group of teens possibly save the day?
‘Super 8’ Is a Perfect Spielberg-Like Balancing Act
Super 8 is as Spielberg-like as a film can be, which isn’t all that surprising, given it’s a true collaboration between Steven Spielberg, who produced the film, and director J.J. Abrams, who credits the auteur with allowing him the freedom to craft the film in the spirit of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Goonies. The focus lies on its core group of teen characters and their relationships with one another, as well as with their parents, in the face of extraordinary events—a common theme in Spielberg’s works. There’s a careful balance of humor with tension, fantastic effects, exemplary pacing, and writing that feels natural (and stick around at the end to watch “The Case,” the zombie film the kids made). And the movie’s strongest asset is its powerful message: You can’t control when bad things happen, but you can choose to let them go and live the life you’re in now.
It’s a lesson that—SPOILER—prompts the alien (credited as “Cooper”) to realize not all humans are like Nelec, pull his spaceship back together and go home. Yet the character whose arc best exemplifies this realization just so happens to be Chandler’s Jack Lamb. He is chained to his grief and chained to his anger at Louis—both of which inhibit his ability to connect with Joe, who is also grieving. But unique circumstances and dangerous secrets force him into action, while the threat of losing Joe sees him finally putting aside his own grief and anger. And Chandler deftly handles it all, exuding the authority, grief, and the freedom of emotional release that constitutes Jack’s arc in ways spoken and unspoken. Just another element among the many that makes Super 8 the sci-fi masterpiece that it is.
