Directors Dave Green’s first feature film Earth to Echo is a Sci-Fi potpourri of 80s classics: A little bit of E.T., some Stand by Me, and a dash of Short Circuit all scrambled up together.
Three best friends Alex (Teo Halm), Astro (Tuck, as Brian ‘Astro’ Bradley) and Munch (Reese Hartwig) are faced with family moves. The town they grew up in is facing destruction to make way for a new road.
But while the parents are packing up the bits and bobs of their lives something strange starts to happen, mobile phones are acting up and only the boys seem to figure out that there is a message hidden in the scramble.
Determined to find out what is happing they grab their bikes and following the signal head out into the Nevada desert. Hear they find a broken alien robot Echo, a cross between EVE (from the 2008 WALL-E) and a mechanical, blue glowing owl.
It soon becomes clear that Echo needs help to be able to self-repair and go home, so the three boys pop him in a bag and cycle wherever he leads, scary men in black vans always in pursuit. Along the way the pick up scrap metal, cogs, appliances and their pretty classmate Emma (Ella Wahlestedt) and the true adventure begins.
The story is an old faithful, a touching tale about true friendship, first love and helping each other. But sadly it isn’t really new. And while Earth to Echo does aim to be tech savvy and very of the now it can’t sake the 80s vibe it is recreating. But the all of that could be overlooked if the video-style filming wasn’t so distracting. The images bounce and wobble across the screen, often making it hard to follow or just focus.
But overall Earth to Echo is a family friendly film with a quirky alien hero, a bunch of fun-loving outsiders and a moral.
jensinewall 