A small working class town in Ohio 1979 suddenly experiences strange phenomena of disappearing car engines, dogs fleeing town and humans vanishing. And all these seem to occur after a US Air force train carrying some top secret cargo derails in a remote part of town, the crash being witnessed by a teenage group who are making a film with their Super 8 camera.

Foremost of this child group is Joe(Joel Courtney) who it is revealed right in the very beginning to have lost his mother to an industrial accident and immediately garners our sympathy. He has his friends who have their own family interactions and tribulations to take care, small town values and youthful virtues et al. They spend the better part making a zombie film with their star performer Alice (a thoroughly remarkable Elle Fanning)

The movie is touted from the very beginning as director Abram’s tribute to the great Steven Spielberg and his films. So anyone familiar with ET immediately recognizes the Spielbergian set up - the character spread, the unrelenting imperil of something lurking whose face is always hidden and the general buildup of suspense rather than senseless action. This is where the film's strength is. All the child actors are universally charming.  Its astonishing that director Abrams manages to stuff a lot of genres into one film like the coming of age, action, mystery, creature feature and comedy.

On the flipside, the movie moves at a snail’s pace with nothing happening for large parts. And as the story moves on, things just seem more and more implausible. However , the earlier build up that leads us into believing that the climax will be worthy of our patient wait unfortunately lets us down in the last half an hour. Consider a child along at home with his toys spread around the room in a haphazard manner. As soon as he hears his parents at the front door he gathers all his toys up and stuffs them in his cupboard in a disorderly manner to avoid rebuke.

That’s how the ending feels in Super 8 , where all the ramping up goes to waste and sequences seem to be filmed for the sake of wrapping the movie up as if Steven Spielberg came knocking to check on its progress. It is spectacularly artificial. The movie and audience and Spielberg of all deserved better.