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Tom Long, Detroit News: Remember the good old days? This is the movie you went to see on a Saturday afternoon in the good old days. Read more
Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: The reasons you'll remember the movie will be all about quieter, moving intimacy created by its characters. Read more
A.O. Scott, New York Times: Attempts the difficult feat of balancing self-consciousness about the olden days with wide-eyed, headlong, present-tense fun. For about an hour it succeeds marvelously. The modest letdown that follows exposes the limitations of Mr. Abrams's imagination. Read more
Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Budding teen romance, menacing military men and not one but two dysfunctional dads are checked off like a how-to Spielberg kit with a depressing lack of intellectual heft. Read more
David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It would be easy to dismiss as 100 percent ersatz if it didn't rekindle at least some of the old excitement -- and if the magic of Spielberg's older movies didn't filter through, like light from a distant galaxy. Read more
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: This new film isn't perfect, and may not be a world-changer, but it's certainly a world-pleaser. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Abrams and executive producer Steven Spielberg are reprising a few of their own greatest hits, and creating the kind of Saturday-matinee adventure that kids of a bygone era would have raced to the neighborhood movie house to see. Read more
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's not a perfect film - the ending couldn't possibly live up to the build-up, for instance - but it is just a tremendous amount of fun. Read more
Christy Lemire, Associated Press: All you're left with is ... story. And strong performances. And well-developed characters. And a believable emotional arc. And genuine thrills. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Super 8'' is a curious thing indeed: A good movie that makes you want to go home and re-watch a great one. Read more
Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Writer-director J.J. Abrams overloads this sci-fi adventure with so many homages to his co-producer Steven Spielberg that it plays like the elder director's greatest hits, minus his characteristic scares and sense of wonder. Read more
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Abrams brings so much affection to the project the results reveal both the film geek he surely was as a Spielberg-lovin' kid, and the hard-charging populist he has become. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: If Abrams had stuck with the kids and cut way back on all the sci-fi hoo-ha, his film might have stood a fighting chance of being charming. Big is not always better, even when it comes to fantasies. Read more
Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: For pretty much the first half of the new movie from writer-director J.J. Abrams, Super 8 isn't really even an alien thriller; it's a sad-sweet tale of loss and coming-of-age set in the golden-gone days of the late '70s. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: There's much to like in this story of a group of young movie-makers who stumble upon an event right out of, well, the movies. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Loving, playful, and spectacularly well made, Super 8 is easily the best summer movie of the year -- of many years. And I make that declaration with full knowledge that the season has just begun. Read more
Tom Charity, CNN.com: Abrams' imitation is a shade too reverent for my taste. He lacks the subversive edge that allowed Joe Dante to bite his producer's hand and bring Gremlins to life, for example, and Abrams seems unsure just how scary he wants things to get. Read more
Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: An engaging return trip to Steven Spielberg's youthful world of wonder courtesy of J.J. Abrams. Read more
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: This melding of two cinematic sensibilities, though effective at moments, is finally not as exciting or involving as it we'd like it to be. Read more
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Super 8 is a loving, heartfelt but hollow pastiche. Read more
David Denby, New Yorker: Spielberg and Abrams are the unwitting targets of their own irony. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's as full of rich characters as it is smart popcorn-movie scares. Read more
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "Super 8" knows what it wants to be, but like the earnest super-8 amateur flick its young heroes labor over, the movie skips some steps to achieve an effect. The result is an almost-great valentine to Gen-X genre milestones. Read more
Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Put "The Goonies," "E.T.," "Close Encounters" and "War of the Worlds" in that blender from "Gremlins" -- and transport the mixture back to 1979 in the "Back to the Future" DeLorean -- and you get J.J. Abrams' "Super 8." Read more
Rex Reed, New York Observer: Sorry to dash your hopes, but it's just more of the same junk. Junk for children, with an estimated $45-million budget. There oughta be a law. Read more
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: The worst that can be said about the film is that the characters are far more compelling than the mystery they solve. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Abrams remembers the simple rule that a majority of his contemporaries have forgotten: action and mayhem have meaning only when an audience cares about the people trapped within the maelstrom. Read more
Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Has moments of greatness, but the ending is a slight disappointment. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Super 8 is a wonderful film, nostalgia not for a time but for a style of filmmaking, when shell-shocked young audiences were told a story and not pounded over the head with aggressive action. Read more
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: A retro monster mash with a child's heart, a prodigy's unstoppable imagination and FX dazzle to spare. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: "Super 8" is more like a mannered impression of a great '70s summer movie than the real thing, but that makes it just about perfect for our age of simulated sincerity. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The result is a sci-fi monster movie that keeps its sense of fun and humanity. It's a valentine to a classically American genre -- the B-movie -- and a nostalgic look back on a more innocent time. Read more
Dana Stevens, Slate: This may not be a children's classic that will last for generations, but it will make for a rollicking afternoon at the multiplex for kids around Joe's age. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Abrams ... delivers a phenomenal pop-art experience, dazzling the senses while aiming straight for the heart. Read more
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Breathing new life into these old forms is a next-to-impossible mission, but if the skeletons in your closet are made of celluloid, "Super 8" will be more of a treat than a trick. Read more
Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: A love letter to a cinematic era, before 'blockbuster' became a synonym for 'franchise' or 'tent pole.' Read more
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: It's the child actors, heroic indeed, who rescue Super 8 from the blockbuster grip of its adult makers. Read more
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The year's most thrilling, feeling mainstream movie. Read more
Tom Huddleston, Time Out: A diverting but rather pointless affair, undermined by its obsessive and clinical commitment to recreating past glories. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Abrams fashions Super 8 in such a calculating manner, with every element weighed both for maximum nostalgia value and ironic hipster cred, that it has an artificial feel to it. It's like a birthday cake made of spun glass. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: This sci-fi thriller has an engrossing plot and a strong cast of fully drawn characters. There's even a sweet youthful love story. In other words, it's a summer blockbuster firing on all cylinders. Read more
Peter Debruge, Variety: Sadly, the helmer seems too smitten working with Steven Spielberg to recognize that his idol-turned-champion created the very paradigm that limits his passion project, forcing this modest nostalgia trip to function as a blockbuster. Read more
J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Named for an obsolete cinema technology, Super 8 is involving enough to create its own reality. Read more
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: All too often the plot feels calculated rather than organic, the result of a time-tested formula rather than genuine innovation. Read more