Earth to Echo

                Three years ago, I, and many others, have hailed the film “Super 8” as this generation's “E.T.” And why not? It was an exciting film that really did pay homage to movies of that time period and generation, all while being its own story. People complained on how the film wasn’t really about the alien, as it was about these kids, and others have complained about why the alien was there to begin with. To those I say…fuck off. The film was successful, and is a film that defines a modern day classic. How that film didn’t get a single Oscar nomination (fuck you, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”) is beyond me. Now where as that film was fantastic, let’s talk about its mentally challenged cousin, “Earth to Echo.”

                “Earth to Echo” is a children’s found footage film (if you’re still reading after that part, enjoy the fun), about a group of kids who live in a smalltown in Nevada, that’s soon going to become a freeway. When their phones go out of whack, they realize it’s a map, and try to follow it before the night is over. What they find is an alien robot, and that the map leads to parts of a key to Echo’s spaceship. Now they have to assemble the key, find the spaceship, and return Echo home, before the men building the freeway find him and destroy the ship.

                Now, disregarding the fact that this is a found footage film, it still wouldn’t have made a difference on what is already a cheap knock-off of much better films, just without any heart. Throughout the course of this film, it rips off “E.T.” without question, as you can count the scenes that are directly from the film. Bike chase? Check. Shady big bad authority figures? Check. A girl tagging along the adventure? You get the picture. Hell, there’s even a scene where they capture the alien, and start to dissect it. Movie, I’ve seen “E.T!” Stop trying to pretend you are! And to make matters worse, the ending of this film, I’m not even kidding, rips off “Super 8” as well, by showing the alien ship being built by metallic crap around the neighborhood…just no. Now, I’ve said before that rip-off films can work, as long as they manage to be enjoyable in its own way, as well as have a personal image to itself. However, much like “R.I.P.D.” and “Vampire Academy” (which we’ll touch on the latter this October), it doesn’t do any of those things, and just comes off as some guy’s poor excuse to make a quick buck, without any effort put into it.

This film was also done COMPLETELY by first timers; actors, writers, editors, etc. The only experience person working on this film was Joseph Trapanese, who wrote the music to this film; and yes, there is music in this film. Now, it would have worked okay, if the music was done when someone was playing it off his or her MP3, but no…music comes out of no-where in a found footage movie…Uh, can I ask why? Why does there need to be music in a found footage film out of the blue? “Chronicle” didn’t do that; hell, NONE of the found-footage movies have ever done that, because it shows that this film just doesn’t know what it wants to be.

The acting is just lousy from…pretty much the entire cast. Throughout the film, I never felt like I was watching actual kids, as opposed to kids trying to act. They don’t do some of the things that kids normally do, and all I saw was them just playing cardboard cutouts of what characters are suppose to be. We got the mopey hero, the girlfriend, the one who can’t keep a promise, the compulsive geek, the bad guy, and top it all off with adults who are really stupid; seriously, who lets kids into a bar or even order them drinks? Surprisingly enough, the only one I actually liked was the geek, Munch, who I swear looked like the kid version of Chris Farley; did anyone else notice that, or is that just me? As for the alien, Echo…there really isn’t much to say about him at all. For a film about kids helping an alien, the alien really isn’t that memorable, despite its name being in the damn title!

If you just look at a preview for this film, with the idea in your head that it’s a found footage kids movie, then you know exactly how it’ll turn out. If you want a film to take your kids to go see, take them to “How to Train Your Dragon 2.” If they’ve already seen it, go see it again. Or better yet, wait for “Guardians of the Galaxy,” because I’m sure kids will have a blast with that as well.

Rating: 1/10