Super 8 Almost Super

Super 8 is a fun summer blockbuster about kids, monsters, and filmmaking—but don’t expect a classic.

• Director JJ Abrams is “clever and sincere,” notes AO Scott in the New York Times, “but still, at least on the big screen, more student than master. Like his previous features, Super 8 is an enticing package without much inside.”
• Claudia Puig applauds the film in USA Today. “Super 8 packs the emotional punch of vintage Steven Spielberg with the spectacular effects and sense of mystery at which writer/director J.J. Abrams excels.

• “Like an old airplane (or spacecraft) jerry-rigged from scrap pieces and made air-worthy again, Super 8 has been patched together with 30-year-old spare parts to provide an enjoyable ride of its own,” writes Todd McCarthy in the Hollywood Reporter.
• And in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers has few reservations, calling the film “a true beauty.” Abrams and “producer Steven Spielberg have tapped their youthful cellu­loid dreams to craft the ultimate home movie, a creature feature built to scare you silly and maybe save the world.”

Click to read the 10 best Twitter reactions to Super 8. (More movie review stories.)