Review of Earth to Echo (2014) by Phil P — 28 Jul 2014

"Having a friend light years away taught us that distance is just a state of mind.".

The term 'Its own worst enemy comes to mind' after watching 'Earth To Echo'. Employing a shaky cam has become popular once again, all these years after 'The Blair Witch Project' made it popular (despite being terrible but whatever). We've had many good ones, great even. But that trend needs to die, right now and unfortunately it didn't before this came out.

Now I'm not going to say this is terrible because its not, in fact I rather enjoyed this film. But have everything being done through a cam-corder and have it aimed at children is quite frankly - moronic. It only serves to get in the way of what is otherwise a good little film. It centres on a group of kids (who claim to be misfits but it isn't shown) who are being forced out of their house due to construction so on their last night together they decide to investigate a strange signal that's coming from their phones. Of course one of them is the 'video kid' who loves making videos, one is a the quick to anger one and the other is the OCD 'weirdo'. The characters are all fairly standard. But they aren't without their charms thanks to the actors who do a fine job and give each other just about enough of a personality to make them fun to watch.

They end up locating the source of the signal, and its an alien and along with 'Emma' who they run into after breaking into her house they go on a mission to help 'Echo' get back home. Of course its got that E.T trait of shady government want to do experiments and it must be a threat because it came from space. And while I don't particularly care for its originator ET that at least didn't have an obnoxious camera hand out motion sickness like it was going out of fashion. It really is an issue and a totally unnecessary one, that comes off more as a gimmick rather than something that fits in with the story. Occasionally it causes confusion with what's going on and is seemingly only useful at the end for the big finish.

Despite my big problems with it and they are sizeable. 'Earth To Echo' has enough to skate along on its charm and genuinely funny moments. The acting is great and 80s style story is decent enough to not make me bored. The handy cam needed to be killed off but having already complained about several times you know my stance. A good film held back by a terrible aesthetic choice. Succeeding in spite of itself.