Review of Earth to Echo (2014) by Craig T — 28 Jul 2014

The poster for Earth to Echo has a blurb which calls is "The Goonies meets E.T", which has some merit. The film has kids following a map going on an adventure and kids with an alien (sort of thing) running from (presumably) government agents, but it doesn't go much beyond the derivative. It certainly isn't anywhere near as good as either of those films, but it also isn't a stinker.

The biggest issue seems to be a general vagueness and general lack of peril. They are harassed a couple of times by construction workers, (once in a completely public place, where apparently theft from children is not even deemed noteworthy), but there is no sense they are ever going to be in more than a slight bit of danger and potentially get a severe talking to.

The effort goes for a big emotional climax, but, despite repeated efforts to ham-fistedly shoe-horn in an emotional backstory, it all feels a bit flat and OTT, particularly as the titular Echo doesn't really do a whole lot for the majority of the film. The rest of the characters are also written a bit weakly, but in fairness the child actors do a pretty decent job with what they've been given.

The biggest worry was that a few minutes into the film, it became explicitly clear that this was essentially a "found footage" film, so pretty much every scene has some reference to some camera or other. Yet surprisingly, it isn't as horrendous as you might think, even with continuous shaky cam and POV shots.

It isn't terrible, but seems to be designed for children with a deep aversion to any sort of tension or peril might find this quite satisfying. To anyone else, its just a bit boring.