I found the viewing pleasurable both intrinsically and for the ways that it reminded me, nostalgically, of past pleasures. I didn’t expect much from Earth to Echo, but I had fun. Earth to Echo does a nice job of reminding us that there is a huge rating space between G and PG-13 (increasingly, the R without the nudity and fewer cuss words). ![]() But there are more than enough movies about people supposedly their age acting like adults for them to see if they don’t want to risk crying in front of their peers. Will this mean some teens will be too cool to go see it on a Friday night date? Maybe. On the flip side, though, it’s nice to see a summer movie that’s actually rated PG rather than R or PG-13. I also thought a late scene in which one of the kids drives a car breaks with the spirit of the genre. Thematically, the shaky cam is certainly defensible, but as the film progresses it feels more and more like a gimmick or a formal challenge rather than an artistic contribution to the overall effect. I imagine this was done to give the film a vérité look since the kids themselves are supposedly recording their own adventure. The main reason I docked Earth to Echo some points is that I really, really disliked the film’s reliance on (I presume to be) hand-held shaky cameras. Each of the adolescents gets a little bit of a back story the adventure doesn’t solve or change the things that haunt or vex them but it does give them new hope, confidence, and success, the building blocks for the better lives they hope to build. The biggest threat turns out to be adults who have grown up and have come to look at anything new as a threat. After their discovery they are given a task and led in that task by the powerful yet momentarily vulnerable entity they are trying to help. Before there is formal analysis there is something more crude but perhaps just as reliable–there is recognition.īut enough poetic waxing–what about the film? Well, the kids follow the map and they find, as kids always do in such stories, something wonderful. It is the sameness of these stories that allows us, even while our formal expository skills are not yet educated and refined, to cry out from deep to deep. In every story he’s ever encountered, the robin is always good. Why is that a bad thing? It is what allows Peter in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to know that the robin is trustworthy because it is…well, a robin. When pondering what to do with that information one of them says, simply, “Maps are made to be followed.” This is the logic of the adventure story, and it is the same in every story. You know when the film won me over? Early on when the three friends discover that that electronic interference on their phones coincided with local topography. One man’s knock-off is another man’s mythopoesis, I guess. If it’s not clear yet, the formula elements that many of my colleagues use to dismiss the film are what made me particularly appreciate it. ![]() To know it, they don’t have to construct or consult complex philosophical arguments–they just have to follow what their heart says is right. They are old enough to know how to lie to preoccupied parents but still young enough to believe that good things happen if you make the right decisions And, most importantly, they are young enough to not be jaded, to believe that there is such a thing as the “right” decision. They are still young enough to ride their bikes but old enough to know that once the proposed highway makes them move they will never recapture their friendship. ![]() They are not precocious movie kids nor angst ridden miniature adults in teen bodies. The best thing about Earth to Echo is that I think the young people watching the movie today could identify with characters. The Karate Kid still makes me mist up every time Daniel goes into the crane position, not because “wax on, wax off” is inherently better than “put coat on” (though it is) but because I saw it at a time in my life where I could identify with the characters on screen and the seemingly insurmountable problems we share for which a few hours in a darkened theater was a blessed escape. My friends and I can still quote Ferris Bueller not because he is a better, suaver version of characters played by Cary Grant or Clark Gable but because he was our version. First kisses rarely lead to marriage, but they are special nevertheless…a hint of deeper, fuller experiences that will follow. They are the ones we see when we are young, impressionable, and a bit more ready to give our hearts away. Truth is, the films nearest and dearest to our hearts aren’t always the best ones.
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