rated PG-13

“Super 8” is a movie about 13-year-olds made for 13-year-olds by a director who’s so in touch with his inner 13-year-old that he might as well actually be 13. This isn’t a bad thing, especially for a light summertime adventure flick that’s a mash note to Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Joe Dante, and a half-dozen other directors. 

J.J. Abrams wrote and directed “Super 8,” and he’s got his influences down to the last detail: “E.T.,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Gremlins,” and maybe a little “Stand By Me” thrown in for good measure. They’re all great films, and, combined with a spectacular cast of child actors and impressive effects, these threads of influence should add up to something great. They almost do, but not quite enough to edge “Super 8” into greatness, itself. 

During its best moments, “Super 8” feels like a Spielberg flick that’s been beamed in from some alternate dimension, a lost film that’s only now resurfacing. Abrams successfully channels the Spielberg of 30 years ago, making “Super 8” a fizzy cocktail of nostalgia. 

The film is most potent during its first couple of acts. If you’ve seen any of the movies that influenced “Super 8,” the setup is reassuringly familiar. It’s 1979 in Lilian, Ohio, a small Rust Belt town full of quiet suburbs, a quaint downtown and a declining steel mill. It’s all one big movie set for Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and his pal Charles (Riley Griffiths), who are working with their high-strung friends (Zach Mills, Gabriel Basso and Ryan Lee) to make their own zombie movie for a local film festival. Charles writes and directs, Joe does makeup, and the others act, run the camera, and supply explosives. Charles, concerned that “older kids” are entering the festival, wants to beef up his film. He convinces Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), a cute, aloof girl from the wrong side of town, to join the cast and then pressures everyone into shooting some footage late one night at the town’s abandoned train station.

Things quickly get complicated for Joe. Alice’s father (Ron Eldard) might have caused the steel mill accident that killed Joe’s mom four months earlier. And Joe’s dad (Kyle Chandler) keeps pressuring his son to go to baseball camp for the summer instead of making monster movies. Then, while filming at the station, a massive freight train crashes. The kids find their biology teacher (Glynn Turman) in a pickup truck among the wreckage. Something strange is going on. And then Joe develops a huge crush on Alice.

You might be able to guess the rest. Odd things happen around town. A hard-assed Air Force officer (Noah Emmerich) shows up while the town’s sheriff disappears, along with all the dogs in town. Joe and Charles discover they have captured something unusual on footage shot with their Super 8 camera that night, and it’s up to the kids to solve the mystery. Thank goodness. 

Courtney, Griffiths, and the rest of the kids at the heart of “Super 8” deliver great performances, and their chemistry and interactions are natural and probably hauntingly familiar for the movie’s target audience of dorky young men. Meanwhile, there’s Elle Fanning, who’s so good in her role that it’s freaky. Fanning, Courtney and Griffiths all get some great moments in the movie’s first half, and it’s a pleasure to hang out with them as they make their movie and sort out their crazy emotions.

It would have been enough if “Super 8” had been a coming-of-age flick that was heavy on the feelings and a touch lighter on the sci-fi adventure mayhem. The actors are so strong, and the central conceit of kids making a zombie movie and figuring themselves out is so good, that all the odd happenings, huge explosions, and shadowy mysteries aren’t quite vital. All that stuff is there, and it’s good, but Abrams doesn’t seem to know how to connect the two sides of the story. As “Super 8” enters its third act, things get rushed and characters are forgotten. The payoffs we expect to happen don’t, while other revelations occur haphazardly or for no reason. These awkward bits don’t completely undermine “Super 8,” but it’s too bad Abrams couldn’t smoothly integrate the movie’s parallel stories. We care about Joe, we’re intrigued by the mystery, but when they finally meet, there’s more of a whimper than a bang.

Abrams and his friend Matt Reeves (who directed the Abrams-produced monster movie “Cloverfield”) grew up watching Spielberg flicks and making their own Super 8 productions. This is Abrams’ third big summer movie, after “Mission: Impossible III” and 2009’s “Star Trek,” and it’s clear he’s still finding his voice and style as a director.

“Super 8” proves that he has a great movie in him someplace. It’s pure popcorn fun that will introduce a whole new generation to the same kind of thrills previous ones got the first time they saw “E.T.,” “Close Encounters” and “The Goonies.” But it’s not enough of an instant classic to encourage those same kids to pick up their cell phones and film their own low-budget monster flick.