Sure to inspire a new generation of youngsters to pick up video cameras and start making their own movies, "Super 8" is an intentionally restrained monster movie that plays the heartstrings of its young characters against a nostalgic brand of filmic suspense.
Dakota Fanning's more talented younger sister Elle steals the show as Alice Dainard, a young thespian called upon to act in a Super 8 movie being made by four preteen classmates in small-town Ohio circa 1979. Alice's "mint" performance, during a touching nighttime love scene with her adolescent private investigator "husband" on a train platform, is interrupted by the crashing of a train intended to add production value to the amateur movie.
Charles (played with goofy aplomb by Riley Griffiths) is a child director with Hitchcock aspirations and an effective verbal command of the director's idiom. Charles's make-up assistant pal Joe (Joel Courtney) recently lost his mother in a factory accident. Joe's town-sheriff dad Jackson (Kyle Chandler) has his hands full dealing with the fallout of the train wreck, which attracts a team of Army and CIA officials for a top secret clean-up operation.
Clue: there's an escaped alien creature on the loose.
Writer/director J.J. Abrams is clearly having fun with playing two entertaining ends against the middle. On one side is the recreational zombie movie the kids are making to submit to a local film festival. Wait through the closing credits to watch the finished Super 8 product. On the other hand is the big budget sci-fi monster movie Abrams teases out as an homage to B-movies of the '50s. We don't even get a good look at the giant alien monster until the third act. The heart of the story lies in the budding romance between Alice and Joe in spite of the vociferous disapproval of their diametrically opposed fathers.
If J.J. Abrams errs on the side of producer Steven Spielberg's wide-eyed brand of cinematic cheese (think "E.T.") it comes as a forgivable flaw. Less forgivable is letting Elle Fanning's character slip out of the plot for two too many scenes.
