Movie Review: “Earth to Echo” (Rated PG) - East Idaho News
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Movie Review: “Earth to Echo” (Rated PG)

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bomojo 070114 earthtoecho?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1404214026100Relativity(NEW YORK) — Earth to Echo is an ambitious, low-budget sci-fi film that tries, very hard, to be the new millennium’s version of ET.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite try hard enough.
 
Using the good ol’ found footage technique, Earth to Echo centers on a group of tween boys in a small town in Nevada, which is scheduled to be demolished to make way for a highway.  However, something strange is happening to the boys’ mobile phones. They stop working, in the conventional sense, and their home screens have been replaced by maps.
 
The boys decide to spend their final night together, before they all move away from the condemned town, going where the strange mobile phone map leads them.  It turns out to be something  way beyond even their fertile imaginations: an adorable alien that’s a cross between WALL-E and Bubo, Perseus’ mechanical owl from the original Clash of the Titans.
 
Even though every plot twist is predictable, I’ll refrain from any major spoilers except to say the boys, and a young lady from their school, will try to help the alien they call Echo return home before the government can get their hands on it.
 
Like I said, Earth to Echo is unapologetic in its efforts to be like ET, and I really wanted it to be a better movie.  Sure, it’s cute, and the kids’ quest for a little independence and empowerment is sure to resonate with a younger audience.  But the movie lacks emotional impact, in part due to mediocre writing and poor character development and acting.  I’m not a fan of singling out young actors for criticism — they have plenty of time to improve and those egos can be fragile — so I’ll just say not every actor in this movie is a natural, and a couple of them weren’t ready to meet the film’s demands.
 
Ultimately, though, Earth to Echo is completely innocuous.  Fun for the kids, and kind of boring for the adults.
 
Two-and-a-half out of five stars.



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