Earth to Echo (PG)
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This came out in 2014, but I didn't see it until 2022. It seems to be aimed more towards younger audiences, so I considered putting my review under "family", but ultimately felt more comfortable just calling it "science fiction". It's not a great movie, but it's okay.

There are these friends named Tuck, Munch, and Alex, who are probably around 13 years old. The movie is shot in something of a "found footage" style, except the footage is never really lost (or found). It was mainly filmed by Tuck (who also narrates) with like three cameras (one of which was in a pair of glasses). He obviously put some things he filmed online, but I'm not sure if he put the main adventure online or ended up keeping it all secret from the world. Anyway, the three kids are upset that they'll all have to move soon, because a highway is supposed to be built where their homes currently are. One day their cell phones start going haywire, and they soon discover that the image it displays is a map. On their last night together, they decide to follow the map, which leads about 17 miles away from their neighborhood. They find a small object in a field, which turns out to contain a robotic-looking alien, whom they name Echo. He can't speak English or anything, so they can only communicate by asking him yes or no questions (one beep for yes, two for no). After they find him, the map on their phones changes, and they go to look for the next piece of the object, which they eventually learn is a key to Echo's spaceship. They have to look for several pieces to the key, one of which is in the home of a girl their age named Emma, who joins them on their quest. (She's the one who figures out the object is a key, as well as asking Echo other questions the boys never thought of.) Their search is sometimes dangerous, most importantly when they run into one of the "construction workers", who are actually using the highway as a cover story to search for the alien spaceship, which is buried under the boys' neighborhood. (I never caught the name of the guy they run afoul of, but Wikipedia says his name is Dr. Lawrence Masden, and he's played by Jason Gray-Stanford, who was familiar to me from Monk).

Anyway, I don't know what else to say about the plot. I will say there's a brief post-credits scene, but it's not all that important. Um... I guess I enjoyed the film well enough. I mean I felt it was worth my time to watch it once, but I wouldn't ever feel the need to watch it again.