Directed by: J. J. Abrams
Starring: Joel Courtney, Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning
Rating: PG-13

Left to right: Kyle Chandler, Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, and Ron Eldard in Super 8. (Courtesy photo)

The parade of summer blockbusters continues this week with Super 8, which might also be called Close Encounters of the Extra-Terrestrial Jaws: The Goonies in Cloverfield. In other words, this movie is full of throwbacks, not that its target audience would know many of them. It's a preteen movie, after all. It's also an action movie, it's an alien movie, and, somehow, it's a good movie.

The throwbacks start with the very title, which refers to a type of film used in cameras back in the '60s and '70s. Fittingly, the year is 1979, and our heroes, a scrappy band of middle-school hooligans, are setting out to make a Super 8 movie to enter into a local contest. Among this group is Joe Lamb (newcomer Joel Courtney), the quiet but good-hearted cameraman, and Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning, Somewhere), who is—get this—a girl. Just when we see a young love starting to grow, there is… a fiery train crash, of course, followed by supernatural happenings around town. With the sheriff missing, the town deputy, Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler, TV's Friday Night Lights), who happens to also be Joe's father, has to keep the town in order. This becomes only increasingly difficult, as the town has to deal with disappearances, blackouts, and stray dogs, as well as a secret government operation that, well, just doesn't smell right. Meanwhile, our heroes are just trying to finish their movie, although they know they're going to have to get to the bottom of the townwide crisis in the process.

I'm always a fan of movies with good, unknown actors, and Super 8 is full of them; the most experienced movie star here is the 13-year-old Fanning. And while the kids in the main group might not individually be anything special, they have a boyish camaraderie that feels genuine, and their awkwardness with the girl—an older girl, no less—is just as honest. Joel Courtney is a good lead; we don't have a big future star here, but we do have the rarity of a solid teenage actor. The same goes for Fanning, who is making a good name for herself besides just being related to her sister Dakota. Kyle Chandler is all right, but with the focus on the kids in this movie, he just seems out of touch for the most part. Of course, that might be the point.

J. J. Abrams (Star Trek), meanwhile, continues to make himself known as a big action blockbuster director. Granted, he seems to be riding Steven Spielberg's coattails with Super 8, drawing from every Spielberg movie, it seems, except Schindler's List. Not that taking influence from other movies is a bad thing; actually, Abrams does it pretty cleanly, still making sure to create characters and develop the story without copying directly from other films. His script is perhaps a little clichéd at its core, but the details—the dialogue, the characters, the individual scenes—are realistic, well written, and then filmed well. It might be a plot you've seen before, but Abrams treats it well, without making it feel tired.

Super 8 is a nostalgia movie for people who don't have anything to be nostalgic about yet. For those of us who were around for movies like The Goonies or E.T. (myself not included), it may serve as a reminder, but it's not the original. I'd be interested to see what today's 13-year-olds think in 20 years, though. It's possible that Super 8 will just go down as a good summer flick, nothing more. Then again, it has the potential to be that kids' movie everyone watches to remember the good times.

Danny Eisenberg is a 2010 graduate of the Bromfield School and is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania.