We’ve had a college found footage movie, a teenage found footage movie, and now a kid’s found footage movie. What’s next? A film cut together of the time my one year old accidentally got ahold of the camcorder?
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“Earth to Echo” is the story of 4 kids who find an alien being and their attempt to keep him safe from harm. If it sounds familiar well it’s no surprise. It seems every generation deserves it’s aliens and kids encounter from ET, to Flight of the Navigator, to Super 8. Anyone else wonder if maybe the aliens themselves are producing these movies, conditioning our children to join forces against us when the invasion hits? Anyone? no? Ok, just making sure.
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So how does this one stack up to the many before it? Good enough I suppose. There’s actually a lot to enjoy here. First of all the way the movie chooses to use technology is pretty clever and fits right in with this generation’s connection to the digital age. Which is also why the “found footage” gimmick doesn’t seem to annoy me here as much as usual. There’s still some of the forced caught on camera stuff, but for the most part the way these kid’s film themselves seemed fully natural to their environment. But the main thing for me was that a movie like this has to have that spark of imagination to work, and I think this one does. It’s inventive enough to be captivating, and joyful enough to keep kids smiling. Plus I loved the themes of friendship and belonging, and that the filmmakers took the time to explore some of the deeper aspects of how those emotions affect childhood and early adolescence. You can see very clearly the appeal that this movie will have if you watch it through a child’s eyes.
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Of course that didn’t keep my adult eyes from picking up on some pretty big flaws. We’ve already talked about the fact that this story is a retread we’ve seen many times before. In fact, it wouldn’t be far off to just go ahead and call this an ET remake. But there is also a level of incompleteness to the overall production that makes it feel like it just needed a little more spit and polish. The effects look a bit cheesy and homemade, and the kids, though likeable, just aren’t quite up to the acting challenge. Of course it’s easy to give them some grace, since they are acting in a found footage movie where you have to be both aware of the camera and still take some dramatic turns. Even so, it gives the movie a bit of rust from an adult perspective. But the worst thing for me was that it didn’t explore more about the alien in the center of it all. Where was Echo? For as much as we were supposed to care about his (or her) safety I never really felt like we explored enough of the character motivations to know why. Of course, it could be argued that that was a purposeful omission to put the emphasis on the journey of the kids, so again I give it quite a bit of grace.
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When it comes right down to it, “Earth to Echo” is an imagination fueled journey with some important things to say about the bond of friendship and emotions of adolescence. Even if we’ve seen this story before, and the acting and effects aren’t quite up to snuff, I can still see it through my kids eyes enough to land it a B-
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