Super 8

What makes this film fantastic is the kids. Their dialogue, their spunk, and their interactions with each other all felt so genuine. They reminded me not only of some of the best qualities of your classic eighties film kids (ET, Goonies, Explorers, Stand By Me), but also a little bit of my own early adolescence. The alien, the explosions, the action...it was all fine and good, but it would have been no different from any other Hollywood summer blockbuster were it not for those amazing kids. That's really what the film is about, anyway. Yeah, that's a little cliched, but it's okay to be a little cliched if you do it right. I was even able to forgive an excessively shmaltzy end scene. I think this may be destined to be a classic coming-of-age film. Well, done, Abrams.