Earth to Echo (2014)
Certified: PG
Duration: 89 minutes
Directed by: Dave Green
Starring: Teo Halm, Brian Bradley, Reese Hartwig, Ella Wahlestedt, Jason Gray-Stanford, Cassius Willis, Sonya Leslie, Kerry O’Malley, Virginia Louise Smith, Peter Mackenzie, Valerie Wildman
KRS Releasing Ltd

Earth to Echo is about three adolescent best friends, Alex (Teo Halm), Tuck (Astro) and Munch (Reese Hartwig), living in Nevada. Their neighbourhood and their lives are about to be turned upside down with the building of a freeway as their families will have to move and thus they will be separated.

Things take a wild turn when all phones start acting weird and strange visuals appear on them. They finally figure out that these designs are a map that leads to the desert.

On their last night together, they opt to ride out to the location and see what is happening. There they find a strange object half-covered in sand. This turns out to be an alien that is trying to get back to its ship. The trio nicknames it Echo.

Emma (Ella Wahlestedt), a girl from their class, joins the group and they decide to help the alien in its quest. However, Dr Lawrence Masden (Jason Gray-Stanford), who wants Echo and the spaceship, stands in their way.

Earth to Echo is a mix of the lost-alien-on-our-planet genre as set in stone by Steven Spielberg’s E.T. and all its successors and the found-footage genre. Dave Green, who worked as a production assistant on the Spider-Man sequels, is wearing his heart on his sleeves as he pays Spielberg a direct homage. Here he has created a robotic design that is both cute and yet real. However, the attraction here is not the robot itself but the mystery these young ones need to solve.

At the same time, the director has also made a coming-of-age story very much in the same style of the recent Super 8 (2011). This infusion of nostalgia that is very much in evidence plays well in the film’s structure and characters.

The found footage here is played out by mining Tuck’s obsession – or need – with recording everything that happens in his life – something which the audience will assimilate with.

Usually I am not a big fan of the shaky camera visuals but here they seem to fit the bill. Technically, this is not found footage but the way it is structured is clever enough and has both a sense of mystery and discovery in it to keep one hooked for the film’s duration.

Aided along with well-presented special effects that increase in intensity as the film progresses, Earth to Echo is a Disney-style movie which has a strong message of empowerment.

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