Working with them is cameraman and cherry bomb fanatic Cary (RYAN LEE), lead actor Martin (GABRIEL BASSO) and supporting performer Preston (ZACH MILLS). The guys think they've scored a casting coupe when they get fellow teenager Alice Dainard (ELLE FANNING) to appear in their film. Like Joe, she's looking for an escape, mainly from her alcoholic father Louis (RON ELDARD), who forbids her from hanging out with Joe, just like his dad does regarding Alice.

Nevertheless, they all sneak out at night to shoot a scene at the local train station. They're horrified, however, when a truck driven by their biology teacher, Dr. Woodward (GLYNN TURMAN), races down the tracks toward an approaching train, resulting in a horrific and highly destructive crash. Woodward survives, but warns the kids not to speak of this lest they and their parents be killed, mostly likely by the U.S. Air Force personnel who are quickly descending upon the scene.

The kids agree not to speak of it, but then strange things start happening in the town. The sheriff goes missing, all of the dogs run away, and acts of odd vandalism become rampant. As Jack tries to calm the residents' nerves while running into a stone wall in the form of Col. Nelec (NOAH EMMERICH), Joe and his friends, when not being opportunistic filmmakers using the military and crash scenes as backdrops for their film, try to figure out why the military is there and what they're trying to cover up...or capture.

Back in my day (yes, you knew that was coming, didn't you), all we had were 8MM film cameras and they were expensive, even those that only shot in black and white and without sound (today's kids are like "Oh-my-God, did you grow up last century?"). Having been a huge "Star Trek" TV show fan and devouring all of the related books (including how the effects were done), I really wanted such a camera to make my own films.

Alas, I was just a poor middle school student with only lawn mowing money (back when you could make a whopping $5 to cut 1/2 acre and larger lots) and parents who didn't think such a camera, stock film, its related developing and so on would be wise investments. Just imagine if Steven Spielberg had encountered the same thing growing up as an aspiring filmmaker.

His arrival on the scene, however, only opened my eyes further into what could be done on film, especially in terms of involving, engaging and captivating storytelling (particularly in his earlier, leaner years before cutesy kids arrived and then started to dominate the material). Of course, I wasn't alone in being affected by his presence and work, and a legion of filmmakers who grew up watching his film became moviemakers themselves.

One of them was J.J. Abrams (who co-created TV's "Lost," but also helmed "Mission: Impossible III" and the "Star Trek" reboot a few years back) who's now come full circle. Not only is he working with the legendary master (who's in producer mode), but his latest offering is clearly in the spirit of his mentor's earlier works.

And that flick is "Super 8," named after the film size and camera that captured it back in the day. Speaking of which, the pic is set in 1979 and features a bunch of kids making, natch, their own home movie. Considering I was around their same age in that very year and with similar aspirations, this flick obviously piqued my interest. After all, it could be my story that Abrams was going to tell.

Granted, I wasn't interested in making a zombie movie. Nor did I have a near death experience with a derailing train, followed by the military invading and taking over my neighborhood, all while bizarre and mysterious things started happening. Yes, that's the set-up for this film, and it won't take a film student to note the bits of homage that the filmmaker is paying to early Spielberg from around that same era.

Without giving too much away, let's just say there's a lot of "ET." here (albeit in a fairly modified form), along with obvious material related to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and even some bits of inspiration from "Jaws" as well as the boy group dynamic from "The Goonies" (that Spielberg didn't direct, but did produce and obviously similarly inspired way back when).

After a prologue introducing the protagonist (a solid Joel Courtney) as a now mother-less teen with a not-so-emotionally close father (Kyle Chandler), Abrams gets down to business fairly quickly. After establishing the kid's group of friends (Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso and Zach Mills) and the teen of his dreams (a terrific Elle Fanning), he gets the plot going with a bang.

Actually, it's a crash and a doozy of one, where a speeding train hits a pickup truck, derails and causes several minutes of onscreen mayhem and peril that makes a similar train crash sequence in "The Fugitive" look like a simple and barely noticeable jumping of the tracks in comparison. As in Spielberg's earlier flicks, the military swoops in (as does a John Williams inspired score), mysterious things start happening, and the kids set out to figure out what's what.

While not as brilliant as I was hoping for (I know, I broke my rule about high expectations), the flick is still quite good, with engaging characters, good action sequences (although none can compare to that stunning train wreck), decent humor and enough moments of seriousness (involving strained family dynamics and such) to keep this from just being a throwaway popcorn flick.

Oh, and there's a monster. Abrams wisely only shows brief and partial glimpses of it early on (a nod, one might assume, to Spielberg being forced to do the same with Bruce the shark in "Jaws"), but then goes a bit too far with explanations and related material. I won't give anything away, but had Abrams kept all related material as simple as possible (meaning it's just a monster and everyone must deal with that), I think the overall film would have been tighter and more effective. What's present isn't bad, but it borders a bit on being goofy in the third act while covering ground we've already seen in other films.

Granted, that's obviously part of the point, and Spielberg fans and film geeks in general will probably love noting all of references, homage and such to certain films that clearly inspired Abrams back when he was a kid, just like me, wanting to make movies with some fairly primitive and limited tools. Not quite as good as I was hoping for or equally on par with the filmmaker's brilliant version of "Trek," "Super 8" is still good, and an entertaining and fun time at the movies like they used to make them. It rates as a 6.5 out of 10.