Super 8 is admittedly not a perfect film, but I enjoyed it so much, and was so taken by the characters and the actors playing them, that I didn't really mind the occasional inconsistency or lingering "awed expressions" scene.

Set in a small town in Ohio in 1979, the basic plot centers around Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), a 13-year-old boy whose mother recently died in a factory accident, leaving him with only his father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff's deputy who's a more than decent man but who has never known how to really be a father. Jackson's escape is burying himself in his work, while Joe's is helping his best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) make an amateur zombie movie with the help of their other friends Preston (Zach Mills), Martin (Gabriel Basso) and Cary (Ryan Lee). But Joe's involvement becomes truly committed when Charles persuades Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), a girl he secretly has a crush on, to join the project.

Things taken a sudden turn when, in the midst of shooting a midnight scene at the local railroad depot, Joe sees a pickup truck suddenly drive onto the tracks, directly in the path of an oncoming freight train, resulting in a spectacular crash that sends freight cars derailing everywhere and the shocked kids running for cover. The plot quickly thickens when Joe gets a glimpse of something bursting out of one of the freight cars, and when they find the driver of the pickup, badly injured, is Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), their biology teacher, who warns them to get away and to never speak of what they've seen to anyone or they - and their parents - will be killed. And then there's the knocked over Super 8 camera that has been continuing to roll throughout everything, capturing something that no one else saw while they were busy tried not to get crushed by flying debris. Something that will become important later as strange things begin to happen: dogs fleeing the town for no apparent reason, car engines and other pieces of machinery being stolen, people suddenly disappearing. And of course the massive influx of military personnel who are crawling all over everything while their commander, Col. Nelec (Noah Emmerich) blandly insists that there's _nothing_ going on.

The characters are well drawn, fleshed out with real personalities, quirks and flaws, and you very quickly come to care about them. And the actors, most of them either fairly unknown or newcomers, are marvelous, the kids in particular as they're at the heart of the film, but also the adults, particularly Kyle Chandler and Ron Eldard as the two fathers linked - and separated - by tragedy, each not doing so well at dealing with it. Joel Courtney as Joe has one of those faces that projects everything he's feeling, from the distance he's experiencing with his dad to the secret yet painfully obvious crush he has on Alice. Riley Griffiths as his best friend Charles is a perfect counterpoint, pursuing his film with single-minded determination but holding other things in. Ryan Lee's pint-sized braces-laden (and explosives-crazy) Cary is a riot, as is Gabriel Basso's Martin as the zombie film's leading man who has an unfortunate tendency to puke a lot, while Zach Mills' Preston has the healthiest fear-instinct of the crowd. And last but not least, Elle Fanning's Alice is a wonder, a sensitive girl with her own father issues whose unexpected natural talent at acting leaves the boys with their jaws hanging.

Super 8 is highly derivative, but in a good way. It draws on the best parts of any number of movies from the past, most notably E.T. (1982) and The Goonies (1985) but also films like Joe Dante's Explorers (1985) , The Bad News Bears (1976) and, more recently, Son of Rambow (2007), a little seen but marvelous independent British film about a couple of boys with family issues who bond over making an amateur movie.

Note: in one scene, there's a definite tip-of-the-hat prop taken right out of Spielberg's E.T. Just keep your eyes peeled when the camera closes in on the water tower near the climax of the movie and see if anything looks strikingly familiar.

There are admittedly weak points in the film, mainly where it seems uncertain of just which direction it wants to take or where inconsistencies tend to be glaring. Is the alien dangerous and deadly... or just misunderstood? Is the alien killing people... or just holding on to them for a while? The trouble is that in different parts of the film it's definitely one, but in other parts of the film it's the other. And the climactic lingering "awed expressions" scene does feel at odds with the the life-threatening dangers the characters were experiencing earlier (not to mention the burning shambles half the town has been reduced to). Another weak point is the villain, Col. Nelec (I suspect the name Nelec is an in-joke of some kind), who is never anything but a cliched military bad guy. But as I said, while these things do keep it from being a perfect film, they don't in the end get in the way from it being an engaging and enjoyable one.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes an engaging film that sucks you in and keeps you involved all the way through, and that values story and character over special effects and stars.

First off, I just finished watching an advance blu-ray copy of this film and the movie and blu-ray transfer blew me away. IMO, this film is one of the very best of 2011 and if you are a fan of "old-fashioned" type drama/suspense films that have to do with extra-terrestrial life and what happens to a small rural community in the late 1970's is truly a film that will stay with you long after the movie's end. To give any more away would be a sin, so I won't.

The blu-ray video and audio is fantastic. The aspect ratio is what appears to be 2.35:1 or thereabouts (Amazon has it wrong at 1.85:1). The video throughout is pristine with vivid colors in the daylight scenes and ink blacks in the night scenes. Details are vivid as you would expect from a top-notch blu-ray transfer. The audio equals the quality of the video and I've had to monitor the volume because I live in an apartment and use a 9.1 speaker configuration. Vocals came mainly from the center speaker along with the two front speakers that sometimes spilled over to the speakers located in the right and left middle ends of the room. Music and sounds were extremely active in all the remaining speakers. This film's sound truly rocked my movie room.

I have over a thousand blu-rays and this film is in the top two of all films made and released in 2011. YES, it is that good!!!

I just pre-ordered this from Amazon.com at the price of $24.99 and that's more than I usually pay for a new movie on blu-ray. I usually wait until the price comes down (which almost always happens) a few months down the road. But this is one film I have to have on release day.

I saw Super 8 at IMAX today. LOVED it and want to see it again, soon! I laughed, I cried, and I jumped up out of my seat 8 times! It was a fun, fun nostalgic ride on an early summer afternoon. The late 1970's music, costumes, location, and set props were right on. Fantastic cinematography, sound design, and special affects.

Ahhhh, but this movie has heart in the story and in the acting. Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, and the new young actor who plays Joe Lamb steal the movie. This 'coming of age' story is set in a more innocent time, before middle schoolers began 'hooking up.' The rest of the kids who make up the motley film crew are believably hilarious. Each cleverly has his or her own specialty in film making. You can only imagine a young JJ Abrams doing the same thing when he was a boy.

Super 8 is not the BEST movie I've ever seen, and the ending is somewhat predictable. But it is the BEST movie I've seen in a long, long time.