Earth to Echo

It’s time for some more free movies on YouTube! This time, I saw that Earth to Echo is available!

I feel like nobody really talks about this movie, but for some reason I can always remember how cool I thought the trailers for it looked when I was younger. I didn’t watch the movie at the time though, so here I am 11 years later.

Honestly, I really liked the concept and execution of this movie. For those who haven’t watched it, Earth to Echo is about a few neighborhood kids who are investigating a strange anomaly that’s causing their phones to glitch out. These glitches turn out to be maps to a specific location, where the kids find a small, robot-like alien. The bast part about this movie, though, is the filming style. Rather than have the typical “unseen camera” that follows the characters on their adventure, the whole movie is shot by one of the kids on his camcorder, who is doing his best to document their journey on his small YouTube channel. This gives the movie a sort of “found footage” vibe, with the shaky camera and somewhat frequent cuts, which is something I’ve never seen any other movie do. Even with this style, however, the movie still manages to feel very cinematic and high quality, with every scene being purposeful in contributing to the story. The odd camera angles and homemade feel only add to the realistic immersion of the story.

I wish more movies could be creative like this one. It seems that nowadays, movies have devolved into simply making every movie more “epic” than the last, even if the story and ideas aren’t very innovative or special. It’s important to have high-quality visuals, but I think in some ways it’s even more important to have high-quality ideas and good storytelling.