The mildewed found-footage technique allows some tension to build from offscreen action, but also renders the knockoff John Williams score inexplicable.

| Original Score: C- | Dec 3, 2014

Worth seeing for those who haven't seen it all before.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 26, 2014

If you distilled this not intolerable film into a bottle, you could happily market it is as Essence of Spielberg.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2014

This cutesy E.T.-like sci-fi drama is utterly undermined by its own shooting style.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 24, 2014

It is a smart, visually dynamic film, but audiences may miss Spielberg's wonderment.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 24, 2014

This kind of magpie filmmaking can work with a sincere core, but the big problem is that Earth to Echo lacks one. It's all spare parts.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 24, 2014

Does for E.T. what Super 8 did for Close Encounters. As lovably '80s as Reece's Pieces and pop socks.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2014

You can imagine ET phoning his legal team, but although this kids' sci-fi adventure is derivative, its characters are drawn with more care and insight than you'd expect.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 23, 2014

If the movie is a waste, at least it's an instructive one, signaling just how offensive children's entertainment might become in the YouTube era.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 10, 2014

Combining some classic plot movements and plenty of modern trappings (just, like, a lot of cell phones), Earth to Echo is a sweet family film that has something for everyone.

| Original Score: 7.4/10 | Jul 7, 2014

Unlike the very successful Spanish horror thriller [Rec] or even the nausea-inducing Cloverfield, which Echo more closely resembles, this film doesn't maintain a consistent point of view or any logic about what's on screen.

| Jul 7, 2014

With authentic characters, dialogue and settings, Echo's filmmakers have successfully created a story younger kids and pre-teens growing up in a Millennial and post-Millennial culture can relate to.

| Jul 7, 2014

...Whatever it takes to endow ordinary youngster stuff...with enough magic and meaning to make the Kids of Today believe that they can in fact, as the film puts it, 'do anything.'

| Original Score: 1 | Jul 3, 2014

Savvily, and perhaps cynically, seeks to be the first to surf what I fear will be the new cinematic language: automatic Google Glass.

| Original Score: C | Jul 2, 2014

The movie's continually reiterated theme of lasting friendship is unlikely to affect even the most impressionable young viewers ...

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 2, 2014

Despite the shaky-cam aesthetic, Dave Green's first feature still makes for a brisk, appealing adventure capably anchored by four young actors.

| Jul 2, 2014

A digital remastering of E.T. for the smartphone social-media kinderkultur.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 2, 2014

Earth to Echo has just enough teen angst to toughen up its adorability and to temper its predictability. It's a simplistic movie, but there's a darkness to it.

| Jul 2, 2014

Imitation should be flattering, not flattening.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 2, 2014

"Earth to Echo" recalls - but doesn't live up to - films like "Super 8" and "Stand By Me," stories of youth, innocence and the Summer That Changed Everything.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 2, 2014