Earth to Echo Review

RYAN: I’m thrilled to be joined in this review by my niece, Gaby.  Earth to Echo is a new sci fi/adventure family film that’s really more for the tween set than the whole family.  It features an alien who’s like a cute, little, robotic owl that was actually my favorite thing in the movie.

GABY: I know he’s so cute.

RYAN: It’s about four kids who, in the movie, are your age – 13.

GABY: Yeah and it was cute.  I liked the whole story.  I was really pretty into it the whole time.

RYAN: I was generally interested in it too but a few things really threw me off.  I hated the shaky cam in this movie.  I’ve never complained about that before in a film shot that way but this time it really irritated me.  It’s not done as well as in other films – and that’s a problem with the DP, director of photography.

GABY: I didn’t like that either. Or maybe it’s not the actual shaky part that bothered me, but the fact that it was all shot from the perspective of the actors, I didn’t like because you don’t get to see as much of the movie.  Like, you can only see what they’re shooting.

RYAN: Right – that is a major drawback of shooting a movie that way.  The audience is forced to only look at what they’re capturing on their camcorder, so it does handicap the story in that scenes are not fully fleshed out.  It’s a cheap way of making a movie, however, and they obviously put some budget to effects and cut corners with the guerrilla style of shooting.

GABY: Yeah and there were glitches with their cameras and I know that’s part of the story, but then we didn’t get to see everything so that bugged me.

RYAN: It normally doesn’t bother me, like in Blair Witch or in any of the Paranormal Activity movies, but the shaky cam reality is super annoying in this film.

GABY: I still liked it though.

RYAN: The kids are all well cast.  They really committed to their roles and are a sort of modern-day Goonies.  They had good chemistry as friends.  Throwing in a girl helped the mix.

GABY: Yeah I really believed they were all really good friends.

RYAN: What did you think of their dialogue?  Is that how you and your friends really talk or did it feel like this is a movie written by adults?

GABY: I felt like it’s all pretty real and natural except for a moment at the end when one of the boys got emotional.  He was emotionally attached and I think that was a little more awkward than he really would be.  But they all sounded normal.

RYAN: It’s very Goonies meets E.T. but not as good as either of those.  I did like the theme of kids feeling like they don’t matter or they’re not understood.

GABY: The set up was all really relatable except for the alien part.

RYAN: That owl-alien is so, so cute!  I really wanted more of him.  Whenever you see something cute and helpless in a movie you really root for it.

GABY: He was really cute and I did care about him in the movie.

RYAN: The effects are really amazing.  There’s one scene, in particular, that’s just phenomenal, with a truck – just so cool.

GABY: That was super cool, crazy how good that was.

RYAN: It’s a nice summer movie for the young-set.

GABY: I liked how they incorporated all of the technology with smart phones and Skype and everything.

RYAN: That did bring a really modern aspect to this kind of story.  You liked it more than me.  It’s a nice option for the right age group but not as brilliant as the classics in this genre.  I have to take you home and show you E.T.

GABY: Ok.

Thanks For Viewing The Earth to Echo Review