Fuck me drunk!
Super 8 is a sloppy, boring, noxious piece of crap.
This represents an effort to recreate the dubious magic of films like The Goonies, Explorers, and ET. Unfortunately, the script feels like a first draft with all its inherent logic flaws and inconsistencies.
It's off to a rotten start with a spectacular but improbable train crash. The cause of the crash is a single vehicle placed in the path of a barreling locomotive. From the carnage that ensues, you'd think the train had hit a box of atomic bombs. A fallen Super-8 camera records something spidery emerging from the crash site. A bunch of annoying kids, the owners of the footage, begin to believe that something is fishy because the military invade their town in the wake of the crash.
Derivatives are piled on top of derivatives to form a vapid mash, and screaming contrivances run rampant across the screen. Every character seems to be in the right place at precisely the right time to witness stuff the script needs them to witness. Exposition is as heavy-handed as possible, and it gets even heavier when the kids find an old film that explains EVERYTHING to them.
This film's biggest crime is lazy writing. Aside from a tight opening five minutes, it plummets quickly into an abyss of pure crapola for the remainder of its endless running time -- its 90+ minutes feel more like 90 hours. And speaking of abysses, the film's creature digs itself one in an old shed. Because the abyss is so deep and so complex, a major question is hung like a dripping turd over the movie: What did the creature do with all the earth it excavated out of the ground? Eat it?
Seriously, this sucks worse than a drunk hooker, and its positive reviews can only be testament to how far critical standards have dropped.