Film 68 - Earth to Echo

Earth to Echo - 02/08/2014

Earth to Echo follows a misfit group of kids who are all moving away from their town as development is closing down the area and a large company is looking to build a freeway straight through the middle of it (sound familiar?)  On their last night together, they go on an adventure using a mysterious map to find a treasure that may save their town (I know, really familiar). Instead of finding the fantastic treasure, at the end of their journey they find a crash landed robotic alien who just wants to get home (oh, come on!)  It turns out that the company was lying about the freeway and were looking for the alien too and then chase the kids all around town (on their bikes) to capture and experiment on the little fella.....and then some guys turn up and bust some ghosts, Jack Burton just wants his truck back, they all go back to 1955 and they win the karate tournament at the end.....ok so the last few bits didn't happen!

I try to watch films on their own merit but sometimes the similarities (The Goonies & E.T: The Extra Terrestrial) are too obvious to be ignored.  Even the poster is pretty much the same as ET!  What I can say though is that I enjoyed Earth to Echo, probably more through nostalgia than actual enjoyment of the film.

The modern twist of the footage being filmed by the kids using their phones and a new camcorder, and having YouTube videos do the exposition was a nice little touch, although it did get a little too shaky at some points (this coming from someone who really enjoys the Blair Witch Project), and dropping the camcorder on it's side was a trope that got annoying very early on.

Earth to Echo resonates all the good things of 80's kid classics, friendship, adventure and just generally playing outside instead of being sat inside looking at an iPad or computer screen, which is a good message to get out there.  However, the audience in the cinema seemed to be a little young to understand the sense of adventure portrayed

I think Earth to Echo is an enjoyable Sunday afternoon, feet up on the couch after a busy morning playing out on your bike kind of film, but if given the choice between this and The Goonies......Hey You Guys!!