Social reviews Super 8:
Much of Super 8 and its story relies on the child actors, who carry the film perfectly. They steal the scenes from the older cast members and easily pull viewers into their world. While the older actors aren’t terrible—not in the slightest—they can’t hold a candle to the younger stars. Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney show so much promise at such a young age that one certainly hopes to see more of them in the future.
TV Guide lists Joel and Elle as "Breakout Stars of 2011"
Newcomer Joel Courtney did an admirable job of being likeable enough without being precious in this fantastical tale. Playing Joe, he's the wide-eyed everyboy with a big dream and he earned our sympathy even more when he fell for Alice, played by the utterly arresting Elle Fanning, who performs with an ability decades beyond her 13 years. Their faces may be new, but their talent had the ability to deliver nostalgia for childhood and days of cinema gone by.
Here's a snippet from the Super 8 Bonus Features on how Joel met Elle Fanning.
"Super 8" made it into Time Magazine's list of "The Top 10 Everything of 2011".
No less than Martin Scorsese's Hugo, J.J. Abrams' Super 8 is a chapter of a filmmaker's early movie life turned into a genre classic. One night in 1979, some kids in a Rust-Belt town are shooting a movie when a train crashes and something —some thing — escapes from its boxcar prison. Abrams, a teen-tyro director before hatching the TV series Alias and Lost, has made a tender coming-of-age story disguised as a monster thriller. Super 8 borrows elements from the early films of Steven Spielberg, the J.J. Abrams of his day (and this picture's executive producer). And not just plot devices from Jaws, Close Encounters, The Goonies and especially E.T., but their aching, innocent emotions. Did you ever cry at a boy-meets-girl picture? All right, did you cry when a monster wins? Those are just two of the surprises awaiting you in the year's most terrific mainstream movie. The some-thing you'll feel is the beating heart of J.J. Abrams, Super 8's boy genius.
From Luton Today:
The real surprise is that the blossoming relationship between shy pubescent Joe (Joel Courtney) and the classmate he fancies (Elle Fanning) should prove more dramatically compelling than the tale’s effects-driven sci-fi aspects.
It’s a real pleasure in an age of relentlessly spectacular, often emotionally vacant, blockbusters to see a big movie that has genuine feeling for characters touchingly poised on the cusp of adulthood.
Today's Woman reviews Super 8:
Joel Courtney leads the cast as Joe, a 13 year old boy who has just lost his mother in a factory accident. He and his newly widowed father Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff’s deputy are figuring out how to get along with each other and deal with their grief... I was taken by the characters and the young actors playing them. Each of them brought depth to the characters they were playing. Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney both steal the movie. I hope to see both these young stars in more movies as they were naturals.
