This is particularly true for the makers of Earth To Echo, whose film is an unashamed homage to those beloved classics. It tells the story of three friends spending their final night together before leaving town. Having received mysterious signals on their mobile phones, and seeking one last adventure together, they get more than they bargained for when they find Echo, a small alien robot who needs their help if he is to find his way home. Earth To Echo is the sort of film which can be made or broken by its protagonists, and the young actors here are likeable, if slightly forgettable. Teo Halm plays Alex, the strong-yet-sensitive leader of the group, and is required to do most of the heavy lifting in selling Echo’s plight to the audience, and he does it well. The film is told from the perspective of Brian ‘Astro’ Bradley’s Tuck, who makes for a personable narrator but has a habit of getting a bit lost in his own film. The most memorable of the young stars is Reese Hartwig as Munch, the tightly-wound oddball of the group who ends up providing a lot of the film’s comic relief. Of course, the real star of the show is Echo, the film’s titular alien. Echo is a small, wide-eyed robot owl who communicates in clicks, beeps and other unusual sounds. And design-wise, he’s hard not to fall in love with. The team at Legacy Effects have a pedigree that stretches back as far as Jurassic Park, and there’s definitely a touch of the Spielberg about the creature. But what’s missing is the heart, the reason why we should care about the alien in the first place beyond the cute factor. Alex goes through all the motions of being upset over Echo, and being recklessly determined to help Echo even if it puts his own life in danger, but it never feels like this is earned. Because the film takes place over one night, and because Echo only ever communicates in beeps and noises, we never see anywhere near enough of a bond formed to be upset when it looks like things might not work out. Where E.T. was the story of a friendship, Earth To Echo is the story of some things that happen to some children. There’s a good chance you already have an opinion when I say the words ‘found footage’. Earth To Echo is told in the found footage style, and if you’re not a fan then it’s unlikely to win you over here. That said, director Dave Green does try and do a few interesting things with it here; the film has been shot and edited together by Tusk and uploaded to YouTube, so it’s not a ‘straight’ found footage film; there are moments when Tusk subtly alters the narrative, and we see various computer graphics, which hovers between being novel and being a distraction throughout. But there’s still a healthy dose of shaky cam at play here. Earth To Echo is out now in UK cinemas. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.