Having a friend light-years away taught us that distance is just a state of mind.

Earth to Echo

(2014)

Explorers meets E.T. meets Chronicle meets the mechanical owl from the Ray Harryhausen Clash of the Titans. Earth to Echo is nothing if not derivative, but Dave Green’s feature debut is nevertheless reasonably engaging in spite of itself. The only one of the above influences that really works against it (complaining that a movie is like E.T. is complaining that archetypal stories get told) is the found footage conceit. It’s wholly a gimmick, and one the kids appear to have augmented with Pro Tools, adding a cloyingly instructive voiceover (in case the youngsters are unable to get the message) and an unnecessary score that attempts to evoke wide-eyed wonderment.

The voiceover suggests another ‘80s influence, Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me, playing into the nostalgic hue of a last momentous summer spent together before childhood friends go their separate ways. Unfortunately, the gravitas of Richard Dreyfus (as the grown-up Wil Wheaton) is absent here, even by equivalence, replaced by Tuck’s video narrative. Astro (how long before he goes back to plain old Brian Bradley?) played Liam Neeson’s impossibly smart street kid sidekick in A Walk Among the Tombstones, and his character is similarly cocksure here. His commentary is replete with unearned wisdom. It’s as problematic as the found footage (complete with far too many “authentic” recording freezes and recording cuts), such that it’s really down to screenwriter Henry Gayden borrowing liberally from strong sources that renders the picture passable.

The young leads offer variable performances, required to be naturalistic but lacking the range to pull this off. None of the young actors are actually bad, but only Ella Wahlestedt as Emma, the honorary girl and latecomer to the group, has the air of a confident performer. Reese Hartwig is Munch, nominally the oddball science geek (the River Phoenix character from Explorers rather than the pugilist of Stand By Me) but is really just a touch quirky. He’s also abandoned the plot in favour of Alex (Teo Halm). Halm is the least impressive, the foster kid given hang-ups about being left alone in the least subtle of ways.

The boys’ neighbourhood, Mulberry Woods, is due to be demolished to service the construction of a highway. It’s the final week before their enforced move and electronic signals playing havoc with residents. Munch tracks the signal (much as Phoenix led the way with deductions in Explorers) to a spot in the desert where they discover a cute little robot that just wants to get home (so, E.T.). To facilitate this they must evade government agents who want to get their hands on Echo (as they christen him). So, E.T. again. Also E.T. again, the not-quite The Creation of Adam-inspired poster.

The borrowing from Chronicle is most obvious in the video footage (although that film did it so well one forgot about it for the most part), but also surfaces in the underground spaceship of the third act. It’s curious that so many filmmakers choose found footage as a stylistic and narrative form, since it so rarely inspired or appropriate. One can only guess it’s partly down to insecurity on their part. If a film is “supposed” to look scrappy and amateurish at least the director can’t be accused of making a hash of things. Dave Green has secured the gig on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, so something must have impressed someone (either that or, equally likely, it is some form of punishment on those who liked the first instalment). There’s no good reason for its presence in Earth to Echo, and it would be a better movie without it.

Echo is expectedly adorable, with an effectively chirrupy sound design that elicits oohs and aahs. He’s overtly owl-like, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Archimedes in the 1981 Clash of the Titans (who was that film’s nod to R2D2), but curiously he isn’t an especially prominent character. Following the initial discovery, there is much chasing about and pursuing of goals (the picture clocks in at a crisp 80 minutes, shorn of credits) but not so much in the way of lovable hijinks. The effects are reasonable for the limited budget, which may explain the robot’s limited screen time (Echo’s dismantling and reconstruction of an oncoming truck is more effective for the idea than the realisation).

There are a few amusing moments that suggest this could have been quicker and wittier with a bit more care. Munch’s offers a disarming compliment to the mystified proprietor of a pawn shop (“Excuse me, sir, you have a very very lovely shop”) and his response on being asked “What was that?” as musical instruments on display start sounding off is the literal “F sharp?” There’s also a scene in a bar that begins well but can’t sustain itself.

One’s enjoyment of this picture will chiefly largely depend on tolerance levels for copious handheld camera and also kids being let loose to act like kids. Fortunately the latter never devolves into a Goonies-esque display of incessant shouting and screaming – although it gets close on occasion – but you’d be forgiven for giving up during the first 10 minutes as the cumulative factors quickly prove wearing. Perhaps the makers realised that, without the gimmick, the movie would look like even more of an ‘80s homage than Super 8 (which is saying something), but that isn’t an especially good reason for it. Earth to Echo is well meaning and inoffensive, but it suffers by comparison with its influences. It lacks either the arch-manipulation of Spielberg’s E.T. (being told that best friends will always be together no matter where they are in the universe is trite rather than sincere, or even ‘berg-ishly treacly) or the out-of-leftfield anarchy that explodes from Dante’s Explorers.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Seinfeld 2.9: The Stranded The Premise George and Elaine are stranded at a party in Long Island, with a disgruntled hostess.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) (SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek , but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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