The flattery is sincere, all right. For his first two outings as a feature film director, J.J. Abrams handled established franchise properties: the unwatchable Mission: Impossible III followed by the amazingly engaging reimagining of Star Trek. For his third film, Abrams decided instead on an original work that almost feels like a franchise in its deliberately deliberate nature. Super 8 is a love letter written in celluloid.

The oeuvre of Steven Spielberg is the clear inspiration for Abrams and he build the film according to the rhythms he obviously absorbed while seeking refuge from the summer sun in movie theaters years ago. Set in the summer in 1979 (though a couple of the cultural signifiers date from a couple years later, making it seem like the actual time is simply “The Golden Age of Spielberg”), the plot follows mysterious happenings in a tight-knit small town with special attention given to a band of youthful misfits who stumble upon some key information while making an amateur zombie movie with their Super 8 camera. As it proceeds, Abrams hits familiar emotional beats and allows the kids to be sloppy, anxious and argumentative in a way that calls back to uncommonly authentic depiction of childhood Spielberg preferred, at least early on. This is a film that exists in a world bathed in blue light so overwhelming that it flares across the camera’s lens.

Since Abrams invites the comparison, a key to understanding the strengths and flaws of the flow is noting that Abrams has a defter sense of humor than Spielberg, but lacks the elder director’s unparalleled ability to control the emotional shifts of a film. Sentimental moments and personal connections that Spielberg could have turned into manipulative magic wind up falling flat in Super 8. They’re there as mere pieces, serving the story dutifully but never hitting the heart. The child actors are all quite good, especially Elle Fanning, who has the admitted benefit of playing a girl who’s so glum about her station in life that any moment of happiness and freedom she feels–any moment she gets to visible be a kid–is like a splotch of vibrant color spied on a soot-covered portrait. They’re understandably limited, though, and can’t bring in depth that Abrams doesn’t provide them beyond some shortcut sorrow.

In many ways, it’s less like a movie that Spielberg directed and more like one of those films that he produced for a disciple director in the mid-eighties when he was starting to turn his name into a brand that promised a certain cinematic personality. This is the movie Joe Dante might’ve directed as the follow-up to Gremlins. It’s fun, ingratiating, warm and funny. It has a couple great set pieces, although Abrams would have benefited from studying Spielberg’s tendency towards restraint a little more closely. It’s not just about keeping the monster hidden for a while, it’s about making sure that, say, a train crash doesn’t turn into a wildly overblown bit of special effects showboating. The more fantastic a film’s basic premise is, the more important it is that all the details feel real.

Super 8 is a handsome tribute that also manages to stand on its own fairly well. Abrams has a sharp sense of structure, both in terms of storytelling and the visual frame. The film is beautifully built, with the score by the ever masterful Michael Giacchino bearing special notice, as he manages to incorporate John Williams sort of textures and tone while still creating something completely original. Abrams does especially well with the simpler scenes that revolve around the kids collaborating on their film, scenes that are so strong that it’s tempting to view them as autobiography. If so, then Abrams has perhaps made exactly the movie he was dreaming of back in the summer of 1979. If that means it’s got some naivete and overt simplicity mixed in with the wonder, that’s forgivable. It sure beats the market-tested cynicism that defines most movies at the multiplex these days.