A stranded alien needs the kids’ phone cameras to see. This found-footage adventure gives them a reason to keep filming.
By Nick Venable
| Published
A mysterious signal on your phone is usually a reason to restart the thing, not ride your bike into the desert. In the 2014 sci-fi adventure Earth to Echo, three boys follow that signal to an alien who needs their cameras to see the world around him. Director Dave Green’s feature debut sends them on a rescue mission that invites endless comparisons to Steven Spielberg’s E.T., but its most interesting trick is turning the kids’ technology into their new friend’s lifeline.
On the one hand, that easy marketing opens Earth to Echo to a wider audience than most alien-ish films. But it also has much farther to fall when people realize that a first-time filmmaker’s found-footage flick will not match up to what is considered one of the greatest kid’s movies ever. (And you thought the title had alliterative skills.)
You know what, though? I never liked E.T. all that much, either as a kid or as an adult, and I’m more inclined to draw comparisons between Earth to Echo and Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Whatever its faults, Earth to Echo is a film about those rare parts of life where one is on the brink of something incredible when discoveries are made rather than learned second-hand.
Roy Neary went off into the woods while these kids went to the desert. Most real comparisons stop there, though, because this is a found-footage movie, which is one of the reasons why Earth to Echo isn’t a great movie for audiences of all ages. It is, however, a surprisingly good effort as long as you’re willing and able to suspend your disbelief.
One Last Night Before Everything Changes
A suburban neighborhood is being evacuated to make way for a freeway, which means best friends Tuck (Brian “Astro” Bradley), Alex (Teo Halm), and Munch (Reese Hartwig) are being forced to move away from one another.
As they’re all approaching puberty, it’s a vulnerable time in their lives for such a massive change, and they want one last big group adventure. Tuck plans to document this for his YouTube page, where many of the guys’ other moments—none of which looked particularly interesting—are put out to the public.
Luckily, fantastic things are afoot in Earth to Echo, and the boys’ phones begin transmitting odd signals that turn into a map.
Those phones do more than deliver directions. In a 2014 interview with CraveOnline, now hosted by Mandatory, Green and screenwriter Henry Gayden explained that Echo’s eyes were damaged in his crash, so he accesses phone cameras to see. Gayden said that gives the kids a reason to keep recording when a normal person might put the camera away. It is a clever answer to a familiar found-footage problem, even when the movie’s other camera tricks don’t feel nearly as natural.
Because Earth to Echo is presented through videos, webcams, and alien vision (along with Google Street View), we’re face-to-face with these boys for the entire movie, and the actors are under a lot of pressure to provide constant energy and reactions.
They’re the “losers” of their school, the outcasts, but they aren’t endlessly hassled or anything; they’re just nobodies. For me, the Earth to Echo standout was Hartwig’s Munch, a delightfully neurotic and meticulous chap who stands apart from the “weird friend” stereotypes.
Because this is the attention-loving Tuck’s story, Bradley’s performance never drops below awkwardly hectic, and Alex’s backstory as a foster child means Halm puts his mopey face on a lot.
So the question is, should these guys stay in and have a nice night at home, or lie to their parents and head out on a too-many-miles trek into the outside world for what could be the greatest night of their lives?
They choose the latter, of course, and they’ve even got a pair of spy glasses to play with. This tool is used often, giving Earth to Echo a different P.O.V. at times, but it never feels natural, and you can tell the only reason why they’re here is because there is no other way the film could justify the kids using a camcorder.
That scene happens to include a construction worker who is part of a shadowy organization that is looking for the same thing the kids are looking for: Echo.
Echo is an alien living a rough life in the desert inside of a broken canister, whose communication skills are mimicked beeps and yes-or-no signals. That Earth to Echo screenwriter Henry Gayden chose to avoid making Echo speak English was refreshing, even if it failed to create a character that is anything more than just a creepy-cute desk lamp that I want to buy.
The trio learns what their new friend needs to do, and they intend to help, along with Ella Wahlestedt’s Emma, the girl whom Tuck claims to have kissed earlier in the movie. Emma’s addition to the main plot is forced but doesn’t damage Earth to Echo in any way.
The quest for Echo is something like a video game, as the kids bike from one location to the next, picking up different pieces of machinery.
Therein lies the main problem with the Earth to Echo plot. These kids travel seemingly hundreds of miles over a few hours of darkness, helping Echo retrieve very specific parts, even though later in the movie, he can just make any and all pieces of metal do whatever he wants.
Also, the kids are followed by the most inept bunch of assholes this side of Fargo, and there are a dozen moments where the jig should have been up and their lives should have been over, but of course that didn’t happen.
In the end, it’s fine, because Earth to Echo is also a movie about a little metal robot who makes human friends, so I wasn’t expecting realism to ooze around all corners.
Perhaps Earth to Echo‘s more ridiculous moments might have been more of an issue had the escalating tone not been so consistent, with kids who think they have nothing to lose putting everything they’ve got into a one-of-a-kind experience (while my thighs would have fallen off from all that bike riding).
I expected heavy-handed dramatic beats with swelling orchestras (that have no place in a found-footage movie), but I didn’t think I would laugh as much as I did. Such an incredible situation provokes unparalleled behavior patterns, which leads to pure silliness at times.
This is where Munch works best, with his ketchup-organizing and his mannequin fascination. I can see it all being even more effective for children that age and younger, especially the goofier moments. For instance, I stared agog at the second “metal thing ricocheting off of everything in a barn” scene I saw during the same week in 2014, after Transformers: Age of Extinction.
The Alien Is Not The Only One Leaving Home
Green offered another useful way into the movie in his 2014 interview with the Phoenix Film Society. He traced its central separation to his own memories of changing schools and leaving friends behind, explaining that the boys’ struggle to say goodbye mattered more to him than the alien encounter itself. Echo gives them a shared problem to solve while their own lives are being pulled apart. That helps explain why the friendships can carry the adventure even when the scavenger hunt stops making much sense.
The filmmaking approach and technology hold pure nostalgia at bay, unfortunately, but Earth to Echo creates a sense of wonder that is the exception to mundane daily life.
I wanted to be the funny kid in that group, zipping around town, talking to aliens, and making eyes at a cute blonde girl. Earth to Echo isn’t a film that needs to be compared to any Spielberg movies to deserve the same audience. This is family fun that works even if you’re alone in the theater without your family, laughing suspiciously louder than all the children around you.
