From HitFix:
Joel Courtney, the kid who plays Joe, is a real discovery. Natural and at ease with the most demanding emotional material Abrams throws at him, he feels like an old pro, and some of the film's most compelling moments are simple conversations between him and the always-good Kyle Chandler.
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/review-super-8-offers-up-charming-character-piece-with-soft-alien-story
From indieWIRE:
Packed full of solid character actors, there are few, if any, weak links, with even supporting players leaving a solid impression (particularly Charles’ family, which in just a few scenes adds distinctly to the warmth of the movie.) The young stars of “Super 8,” many of them first timers, carry the film well, and the dynamic between the group of friends is “Sandlot” -comparison worthy. Fanning and Courtney shine in the leads; bringing a genuine heart to the love story at the center of the film
From Dread Central:
...Super 8 is the perfect summer movie riddled with the kind of action, heart, and fun that most filmmakers would kill to be able to conjure. There's a new beast in town, and with any luck we haven't seen the last of it. See it. Love it. See it again. Bring your friends. Bring your family. Believe the hype. This flick delivers.
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.
