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Cast: Alaqua Cox, Chaske Spencer, Tantoo Cardinal, Charlie Cox, Graham Greene, and Vincent D’Onofrio.
Creator: Marion Dayre
Director: Sydney Freeland
Streaming On: Disney+
Language: English (with subtitles)
Runtime: 5 Episodes, Around 40 minutes each.
Echo Review: What’s It About
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been having a rough time lately. From a quality standpoint, it shows in every single one of their products and the audience’s reactions to them. It seems people are not just interested enough to follow the overarching story of the MCU in these new phases. With more movies and TV series coming out in the future, it might be that the MCU will plummet even deeper. Echo, the latest Marvel TV series on Disney+, dares to go in a different direction, and just for that, it is partially successful.
Echo Review: Script Analysis
Echo feels very much like an experiment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kevin Feige and his team chose Echo as the first Marvel series on Disney+ to get the M-rated label and return to the tone that made the Netflix shows so popular for a while. Echo is such a minor character, not only in the comics but in the MCU as such, that they can go to things that they would never do with more established characters, and the result is a story that, while small, still packs a punch.
Echo still feels and looks very much like a Daredevil spin-off, in the same way that The Punisher and the other Netflix shows felt after being led by the blind superhero. Echo is dark and violent, and its action sequences lean on the “one shot” camera work to make them feel outstanding and impressive. In that regard, the show does well and evil, as the action sequences shown in that format are pretty fun, but sometimes the choreography doesn’t match the occasion, and the fights lose their impact.
The most impressive thing about the show is Echo, as she began as a very minor character introduced in the Hawkeye episode. Still, she manages to get her personality and power set here and conclude her tale satisfyingly. All this character development is done in just five episodes, and by the end, the writers have achieved their goal. It might not be that Echo will become a staple of the MCU, but this is a nice little story in the middle of all the cosmic shenanigans happening everywhere else.
It would be nice for more significant stories to get the emotional core that Echo can work here, but Echo also could have been better by increasing the stakes a bit and creating a better pace between the episodes. It is acceptable for this story to be about Echo and Echo alone, but what made the MCU successful was that each story was a piece of a bigger one; Echo does follow that formula, and it might be that the MCU writers have forgotten how to do it.
Echo Review: Star Performance
Alaqua Cox is the show’s star, not only because she plays the main character but also because the entire show is designed to showcase her as a talent worth following. Cox is not only very good at playing her part during the action sequences, but she is also believable during the more emotional moments of the story, even when everyone else around her feels a bit more campy than they should. Cox is the star and one of the best elements in this miniseries.
The rest of the cast does well, but they don’t shine like Cox. For example, it is pretty fantastic to see actors of Tantoo Cardinal and Graham Greene’s caliber being part of the show. Still, while important, their roles feel a bit too stereotypical, while Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance as William.
Echo Review: Direction & Music
Echo tries to call back to the tone of Netflix’s shows, and thankfully it is closer to Daredevil season 1 than any of the others. However, the show also tries to do so much more than just being violent, and the direction of Sydney Freeland and Catriona McKenzie go a long way in making the show feel dynamic enough, especially during these unique intros where we learn more about Echo’s ancestors and who they will impact her in the present. Towards the end, the show goes into the fantastic, but not enough that it changes the established setting.
Sometimes, the action sequences go too far into the “one shot” territory, and I prefer the more well-edited sequences. Films like The Raid and John Wick have proven that it is not about how long you can sustain the shot but how well the thing on the shot looks and how it can be seen, and in that department, some of the direction stumbles a bit. Dave Porter composes the score, and the music does an excellent job of creating tension and excitement on a need basis.
Echo Review: Last Word
Echo doesn’t feel as revolutionary as it should to change people’s appreciation of the current MCU. Still, it doesn’t fall into the lows of something like Ms. Marvel either, and thus, it can be said that it is a good watch, but only if you are really into the MCU; otherwise, the story feels more like filler than anything else. Nevertheless, it shows that the MCU can go in a different direction and needs to because the current formula is not working anymore, not for the stories or the audiences watching them.
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