Tripwire Reviews JJ Abrams Super 8 In 4K Ultra HD

Close Encounters Of The Abrams Kind

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows reviews Paramount’s 10th anniversary of JJ Abrams’ Super 8 in 4K Ultra On Blu-Ray…

Super 8
Director: JJ Abrams
Stars: Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Ryan Lee, Kyle Chandler, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills

2021 is the 10^th anniversary of JJ Abrams’ Super 8 so Paramount has just released a 4K Ultra HD version of the film on Blu Ray. Abrams is a very inconsistent director and while his love of film is evident, sometimes the execution falls short. Super 8 is Abrams’ 2011 production, a love letter to the movies he enjoyed as a kid by the likes of Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante.

Super 8 tells the story of five boys and one girl in smalltown America in the 1980s, attempting to shoot a Super 8 film but find themselves in the middle of a real US government conspiracy.

Super 8 is one of Abrams’s most cohesive features and it’s interesting to compare it now to Stranger Things, Netflix’s TV show which is also a paean to all things 1980s. It is unlikely that show would have got off the ground without Super 8.

Interestingly Super 8 was produced by Steven Spielberg which may be one of the reasons why the film feels like such a successful tribute to the man’s 1980s work.

The 4K transfer here does help to really lighten the darker scenes that run through the film, offering a sharper visual experience than previous versions of it.

The featurettes come from the original DVD and Blu Ray release but they are interesting especially the one which explains why Super 8 was such an important film for Abrams to make as it is a tribute to the films he made on Super 8 as a young kid. It even features Spielberg, explaining how the pair first met. The rest do offer some insight into how the film came together including how they picked the location to shoot it and how they created the film’s monster, The Visitor.

Super 8 is a lovingly crafted tribute to the films that shaped Abrams and producer Bryan Burk as young boys like ET, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Jaws and Gremlins. There are also nods to films like John Carpenter’s The Thing too The cast is exceptional with great chemistry between Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney and Riley Griffiths. The teen cast bring such infectious innocence to their roles that people watching just can’t help but be sucked in. The adult cast members like Ron Eldard and Kyle Chandler also help to bring a touch of gravitas and warmth here. Abrams also manages to recapture that sense of 1980s American small town ennui with style and panache while the presence of Spielberg himself as producer makes it feel like the mantle is being passed here.

Super 8’s 4K treatment really helps to lift it for viewers, offering a better cinematic experience than the regular releases that predated it. It also shows what Abrams can do when he really has his head in the game as a director too. It is one of the better mainstream films of the past ten years.

Super 8 4K UHD is out now