Earth to Echo
Writers: Henry Gayden, and Andrew Paney
Cast: Teo Halm (Alex), Astro (Tuck), Reese Hartwig (Munch), Ella Wahlesstedt (Emma), Jason Gray-Stanford (Dr. Lawrence), Algee Smith (Marcus Simms), Cassius Willis (Calvin Simms), Sonya Leslie (Theresa Simms), Kerry O'Malley (Janice Douglas), Virginia Louise Smith (Betty Barrett), Peter Mackenzie (James Hastings), Valerie wildman, and (Christina Hastling).
The film starts off with Tuck (Astro) weening in on the highlights of friendship, a neighborhood somewhere California. It's the story of a friendships that last no matter where you live; Alex (Teo Halm), Munch (Reese Hartwig), and Tuck who is recording a video, evidence, and a short film made for there own pleasure, a way to express the dislike of the construction crew making their homes into an unwanted highway. Tuck (Astro) explains every step of the way, as the trio, Alex, Munch, and Tuck take on an event that will change them forever.
Alex (Teo Halm) a foster kid who was bounced around until he ended up with a wonderful family in California, he is part of the trio, and a strange one of the three, but a great friend. Munch (Reese Hartwig) a self-proclaimed computer geek, and when you enter his room, you'd know right off this kid is a computer wizard. Last part of the trio is Tuck (Astro) the video mastermind behind it all, it's the importance of the shot, the video camera must be on at all times. And Emma (Ella Wahlestedt), she is the girl that Tuck (Astro) lied about kissing. In fact she's the one everyone goes crazy about in the school cafe, but this young rich girl ends up joining them later on.
The cell phones end up losing power, but some flicker, and others you must be at a certain location to get power back. As the story goes, the people that live somewhere in a community near a desert in California, the residents must move because of a highway construction project. The weird thing is that the construction crew feels different to the kids, but the unexplained shapes that are imprinted on their phones give these young kids hope, on the last weekend together the young crew plan to ride out to the location where the signal is the strongest.
In the middle of nowhere the trio find debris that looks like a typical metal broken off of something larger, much larger. The metal is a piece of an alien ship that was put down by the government. Tuck, Alex and Munch need to locate the missing pieces in order to put the construct together. The alien debris can also communicate, which later the guys figure out it's an alien sentient robot, that only wants to go back home. Along the way, they follow the alien, which they call Echo. The alien takes the boys to the secret locations scattered throughout the different areas. On one of those locations the guys have located another piece that is inside of a girl's room, Emma. Afterwards Emma (Ella Wahlestedt) joins the guys and together help little Echo get home.
Rant: The connections between the alien (Echo) and the kids in the film is done well, especially the scenes with Alex, those scenes were done with good taste, the foster kid idea was good, i like the deep rooted connection between the the two characters, brings out real emotions that were suppressed, Alex needed to see the end, no matter what the cost, Echo will find his way home, just like Alex needed a family.
The found footage idea was genius for this kind of film, it really brought out the characters, a text book of expressions, laughter, anger, all those emotions were all expressed thanks to the found footage sequence. Sometimes when done right, this sequence can be a real experience. Tuck used the camera as a focus point of view, which i love. The camera caught everything, even the unnecessary scenes, like the boys breaking in Emma's house to find one of the objects, that scene if shot normally wouldn't of mattered, but the shaky camera, and Tuck's comments, making that particular scene perfect. Found footage is a way of expression, all feelings are told by the camera's point of view, a really good film-making sequence but, it can be annoying if not done correctly.
The biggest deal that i really have with this film is the "Robin hood" soundtrack in one particular scene with Tuck looking into the camera. A Morgan Creek production, a very subtle scene in the film, very hard to catch if your not looking for issues, and those kinda things. Not a real big issue, but the Morgan Creek thing bothers me because it's not yours. That's why? sampling music sends me off into space, because it's lazy, and they could've used their own music which by the way was pretty good, so why not use it.
Some reviews suggest this film is to much like E.T. and the originality of the film brings Earth to Echo down, below it's depths. I disagree highly, because do you know how many films are alike? more than you can count on your fingers. The concept of serial killer, lets go into that. Hannibal films, Zodiac serial killer, the series the Following, Scream, i could go on. The point is the alien was a cute robot instead of a green cute little dude that has long fingers. I really care nothing for reviews that compare E.T. to this film, the found footage concept did it for me. so the comparison really doesn't work, it's like comparing Rocky to Bloodsport, yes the two films are similar, but have many differences, the main one is martial arts to boxing, and in E.T. to Earth to Echo the differences would be found footage sequencing, and the alien being a robot. The kids were different as well, all unique. Some reviews went as far to critique the kids riding the bikes, all that came from E.T. and their point was? really it made no sense,why? go that far.
The point of the film was wonderful, it's special effect were done well, especially the ending sequence which i thought was better than E.T. my opinion, just saying. The beauty of film-making is that each director has their own vision of what a film should be like, it transforms into what they think is good, or bad. Remakes are done because of those unique visions. Imagine if you could make a movie of a guy going back to the future, but a terminator interrupted and killed all known relations to the leading character. Vison is important because it makes the film different, a new vantage point. What if? the main character was female instead of male, those changes brings strength to a film. Sometimes folks don't like change, look at the Star Wars prequels and compare them to the old films, no comparison, because the changes did not work, the film was already a huge deal, the film-makers decided to change what was simple into something new and different, and that killed the films. In Earth to Echo the differences were wonderful, emotional, and beautiful. The main point was the friendships, and hardships the characters experienced, and to me that was the core of the movie, and what film-makers should always strive for.
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