From Ain't It Cool News:

In SUPER 8…  we meet a young boy on the day he lost his mother to an industrial accident.   His father, Kyle Chandler, is the Senior Deputy for the Sheriff’s department in a small 14,000 population town.   His dad is a hard worker.  Never really there in the home.  Joe Lamb, played to perfection by Joel Courtney, is a great kid, but he was raised by his mother, who allowed him to be the geek that he is.   He paints Aurora Models, reads Famous Monsters, Starlog and has posters all over his room.   Including Robert Crumb’s KEEP ON TRUCKIN’, which kind of informs me about his mother, I would have liked to have met her, she seemed cool as hell, at least to little Joe. 

...

Watching Alice and Joe in his bedroom together.   Nothing out of line, just the intimacy of both doing what their parents told them not to…  and for all of that to simply be friends.   That’s all they are.   They’re friends trying to understand why their fathers hate one another – and if the story doesn’t hit you…  well, I don’t know what to say.   Suffice to say, the two fathers have a lot to deal with.   Luckily their kids are doing most of the healing themselves. 

From Total Film:

The kids, mind, are faultless. Unlike the silicon-soul LA brats who inhabit most modern movies (though Elle Fanning, terrific as the cool older girl who Joe and Charles moon over, is exactly that), this terrific troupe recall not just early Spielberg but ’80s favourites Stand By Me and The Monster Squad.

It’s there in the gap-toothed grins, fleshy frames, oversized spectacles and bowl haircuts, and it’s there also in the insouciant banter spiked with colourful lingo (“Holy shit, that’s mint!”; “Dude, that’s bitchin’!”; “This is insane!”).
 
Maybe the kids feel real because JJ had friends just like them, or maybe it’s because they’re borrowed from movies where they felt real the first time round, and are here presented with sincerity.

Whatever the reason, they’re a riot to hang out with, and their heartache – Joe’s mom has just died, all of them are outsiders – feels genuine, though it never wrenches like Elliott’s absent father or Gordie LaChance’s dead older brother.

From NY Times Square.

From the Huntington WV News:

The opposite of Elle, Joel Courtney had never had any professional acting experience at all when he was offered "Super 8's" lead role of Joe Lamb, a kid trying to come to grips with the sudden loss of his mother.

"I knew J.J. was taking a real chance on me and I didn't want to let him down. I wanted to do a good job for him, myself and for everybody working on the film," Joel explains.

Abrams adds, "I didn't want the main character in 'Super 8' to be the director of the movies. I wanted him to be the kid who follows the director, who's there because he's lost his mother and is having a tough time with his father and is looking for his way."

From the beginning, Joel understood why Joe devotes himself to making his friend's Super 8 movie at a time in his life when nothing else is certain. "Joe's mom has passed away and his dad, being the town deputy, is never really around," Joel comments. "So, Joe finds his only comfort with his friends. His dad wants him to be a regular kid and play baseball, but Joe just wants to make movies. He's in charge of all the makeup, sound and special effects and he loves that stuff."

Most of all, Joel was kept intrigued by the mounting tension of the story. "I love the mystery of it and it is a total adrenaline rush," he says.