JJ Abrams: Ranking His Movies From Worst To Best

5. Super 8

Super 8 pleased critics, to a certain extent, but found a harder time connecting with audiences. Despite having made five times its budget back worldwide, you tend to have to remind people that this film even exists.

Abrams' first (and so far, only) directorial outing from an original idea owed a lot to his mentor Steven Spielberg's family-orientated sci-fi classics such as E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the end, Super 8 is more pastiche than homage due to a been-there-seen-that feeling permeating itself throughout. Although Abrams' intentions to honour his greatest influence were noble, in actuality they ended up diminishing the final product.

The story of a group of young kids who stumble across a trainwreck with some dangerous alien cargo is ostensibly very sweet and nostalgic, but where the cherub-faced, idiosyncratic gang of boys sells the film's beating heart, its more fantastical elements don't easily jibe with that aesthetic. The seemingly-malevolent monster that terrorises the small town is eventually portrayed as being sympathetic, which is confusing considering we've seen it straight-up murder people.

The film tends to shine away from its creature-feature stylings, when focusing on the young kids' interpersonal relationships and the onslaught of puberty; arguably scarier than a big slathering alien beast. Spielberg might have been able to marry the two elements of this tale in his sleep, but unfortunately, JJ wasn't entirely up to the task.

As a loving ode to the 80s, Super 8 almost works. But it's certainly not Abrams' best.