Adequate 8

Rating: 5/10 (11 June 2011)

If anything, Super 8 reveals the giant gap between the talents of Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams. Abrams, emulating the master here, establishes an interesting premise and gives us the requisite teary eyed children and out of touch parents but then completely meanders off course in the film's last third.
The kids all turn in fairly impressive performances but the adults have little to do and, where the first part of the film has wonder and humor, the last part turns into some sort of Transformers sequel and runs the jokes into the ground.
This is Abrams' problem. He cannot stay on a narrative. He did a terrific job reviving Star Trek, but that franchise, of course, has a well worn structure that kept him on course. However, as we saw clearly with Lost, Alias and again here, left to his own devices, his writing tends to lose focus. His plots drag on and by the end we're tapping our toes waiting for a satisfying conclusion that we know will never come.
POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILER AHEAD Super 8 is not a bad film. But it's certainly not super. And, irony of ironies, the home movie the kids make, shown during the end credits, is somewhat more satisfying than Super 8, itself.