The Space Between Us
IMDB Rating : 6.4
Date Released : 1 - 26- 2017
Movie Genre : Adventure, Drama, Romance
Movie Stars : Gary Oldman, Asa Butterfield, Carla Gugino
The first human born on Mars travels to Earth for the first time, experiencing the wonders of the planet through fresh eyes. He embarks on an adventure with a street smart girl to discover how he came to be.
In this interplanetary adventure, a space shuttle embarks on the first mission to colonize Mars, only to discover after takeoff that one of the astronauts is pregnant. Shortly after landing, she dies from complications while giving birth to the first human born on the red planet - never revealing who the father is. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Gardner Elliot - an inquisitive, highly intelligent boy who reaches the age of 16 having only met 14 people in his very unconventional upbringing. While searching for clues about his father, and the home planet he's never known, Gardner begins an online friendship with a street smart girl in Colorado named Tulsa. When he finally gets a chance to go to Earth, he's eager to experience all of the wonders he could only read about on Mars - from the most simple to the extraordinary. But once his explorations begin, scientists discover that Gardner's organs can't withstand Earth's atmosphere. Eager to find his father, Gardner escapes the team of scientists and joins with Tulsa on a race against time to unravel the mysteries of how he came to be, and where he belongs in the universe.
The screenplay mechanisms which lay out the overall story (space boy
wants to live on earth and meet up with pen-pal girl and unknown
father) are consistently forced, clunky, and a distraction to the point
of being groan-worthy.
A little more behavioral (her portrayal of anger and angst, et al., was over the top) and physiological realism (his repeated on-screen sprinting, his bone-strengthening 'operation,' et al., were a joke) would have given the story more credibility. All the casting, special effect, locational ingredients were in place, but were wasted for the lack of a believable and more seamless script.
Films that fall considerably short like this make one realize how very special those movies are that are able to put all the movie making elements together and entertain the eye, heart, and intellect.
P.S. This movie will most certainly be viewed by and be appealing to young impressionistic teens, and to the extent that the content of movies seeps into their subconscious, the multiple carefree auto thefts with no consequence, and more particularly the glorified attempted suicide by drowning scene at the end were very poor, unnecessary, and irresponsible choices.
A little more behavioral (her portrayal of anger and angst, et al., was over the top) and physiological realism (his repeated on-screen sprinting, his bone-strengthening 'operation,' et al., were a joke) would have given the story more credibility. All the casting, special effect, locational ingredients were in place, but were wasted for the lack of a believable and more seamless script.
Films that fall considerably short like this make one realize how very special those movies are that are able to put all the movie making elements together and entertain the eye, heart, and intellect.
P.S. This movie will most certainly be viewed by and be appealing to young impressionistic teens, and to the extent that the content of movies seeps into their subconscious, the multiple carefree auto thefts with no consequence, and more particularly the glorified attempted suicide by drowning scene at the end were very poor, unnecessary, and irresponsible choices.
You know how it goes. The boy (Asa Butterfield) meets the girl (Britt
Robertson), there's mutual liking and they want to meet... but there's
a space between them. So he will travel to Earth from the Mars colony
where he was born.
Also starring: Gary Oldman, Carla Gugino, and B.D. Wong, because even the coolest teenagers need some adults around.
"The Space Between Us" rides on the current wave of Young Adult, or YA for short, novels and movies which has dowsed the cinemas for the last ten years or so.
It's still about romance, some sci-fi and action like the most of them (or at least the most popular of them) but it brings some refreshing changes to the menu.
It's based on an original screenplay and not novel. It offers sci-fi and action without relying on done to death YA clichés (dystopian society, dating or fighting supernatural beings, etc). It puts characters in real danger so you can't always predict whether everybody's gonna make it. It doesn't have clear-cut good and bad guys...
And last but by far not least, the movie has a nice classic Steven Spielberg-ian feel which puts the sense of wonder and adventure back to sci-fi which, in my humble opinion, is often missing or buried under all those visual effects and pizazz setpieces.
Even good old Spielberg himself is not always able to pull it off: the movie makes you actually care about the characters because there's a real human backbone to the story. It's entertainment but it also has heart.
All this rests very much on the lead man Asa Butterfield who was 18 during the filming and turns 20 this April.
Former child star of "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", Scorsese's "Hugo" and "Ender's Game" fame, this guy has grown to become a fine young actor indeed.
I very much enjoyed his soft but sure performance as an innocent and fragile alien braving the world unknown to him. He has found a seemingly perfect balance between strange, childlike and soulful that the role asks of him, and I'd be glad to see him getting some awards or nominations for this standout work.
He even has this memorable, Pinocchio-ish appearance and style of moving which seems suitable for a person not used to Earth's gravity.
The other characters stay more in the background, so this turns out to be Asa Butterfield's show, and he more than fulfills the promise.
The next most interesting performance comes from Oldman who ventures in the land of brashness and theatricality, in a good way. The aging thespian hasn't offered this kind of colorfulness for quite some time (in a big movie, at least) and I enjoyed it to the point of feeling that his character was underused. Holding him in the background makes sense in the context of a whole story, though.
If you find my score surprisingly high, please remember that it's made for a YA crowd, or at least a teenager in all of us. I would not recommend it alongside 8 out of 10 movies made for older viewer groups. Probably.
But 8 is not too generous. I liked "Space" very much and its overall quality more than compensates a shallow story which surely would work better longer. This could be a bona fide modern classic if the characters and events had more room to develop and breathe. Maybe in the form of (mini-)series or something.
If you like "The Space Between Us" and look for something similar to watch, I would recommend 2014's "The Fault in Our Stars" for moving YA story, or 2015's "Tomorrowland" as an uneven but good example of how to combine sci-fi and action in a YA movie.
Also starring: Gary Oldman, Carla Gugino, and B.D. Wong, because even the coolest teenagers need some adults around.
"The Space Between Us" rides on the current wave of Young Adult, or YA for short, novels and movies which has dowsed the cinemas for the last ten years or so.
It's still about romance, some sci-fi and action like the most of them (or at least the most popular of them) but it brings some refreshing changes to the menu.
It's based on an original screenplay and not novel. It offers sci-fi and action without relying on done to death YA clichés (dystopian society, dating or fighting supernatural beings, etc). It puts characters in real danger so you can't always predict whether everybody's gonna make it. It doesn't have clear-cut good and bad guys...
And last but by far not least, the movie has a nice classic Steven Spielberg-ian feel which puts the sense of wonder and adventure back to sci-fi which, in my humble opinion, is often missing or buried under all those visual effects and pizazz setpieces.
Even good old Spielberg himself is not always able to pull it off: the movie makes you actually care about the characters because there's a real human backbone to the story. It's entertainment but it also has heart.
All this rests very much on the lead man Asa Butterfield who was 18 during the filming and turns 20 this April.
Former child star of "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", Scorsese's "Hugo" and "Ender's Game" fame, this guy has grown to become a fine young actor indeed.
I very much enjoyed his soft but sure performance as an innocent and fragile alien braving the world unknown to him. He has found a seemingly perfect balance between strange, childlike and soulful that the role asks of him, and I'd be glad to see him getting some awards or nominations for this standout work.
He even has this memorable, Pinocchio-ish appearance and style of moving which seems suitable for a person not used to Earth's gravity.
The other characters stay more in the background, so this turns out to be Asa Butterfield's show, and he more than fulfills the promise.
The next most interesting performance comes from Oldman who ventures in the land of brashness and theatricality, in a good way. The aging thespian hasn't offered this kind of colorfulness for quite some time (in a big movie, at least) and I enjoyed it to the point of feeling that his character was underused. Holding him in the background makes sense in the context of a whole story, though.
If you find my score surprisingly high, please remember that it's made for a YA crowd, or at least a teenager in all of us. I would not recommend it alongside 8 out of 10 movies made for older viewer groups. Probably.
But 8 is not too generous. I liked "Space" very much and its overall quality more than compensates a shallow story which surely would work better longer. This could be a bona fide modern classic if the characters and events had more room to develop and breathe. Maybe in the form of (mini-)series or something.
If you like "The Space Between Us" and look for something similar to watch, I would recommend 2014's "The Fault in Our Stars" for moving YA story, or 2015's "Tomorrowland" as an uneven but good example of how to combine sci-fi and action in a YA movie.
The concept of the film is pretty intriguing, but once you actually
watch it, there are a lot of flaws that appear. The big one being: no
female astronaut would have been able to go to space while pregnant. It
was also quite dramatic, the way they made that scene. Anywho, you'll
just have to excuse all the questions that may arise when watching this
film in order to enjoy it. I have been a fan of Asa Butterfield since
watching him in Ender's Game, and then realized that he was in The Boy
in the Striped Pajamas, as well as in Hugo. All films that I enjoyed
greatly. He's making a lot of movies in different genres which show his
versatility. While I did not especially like this film, he did his part
pretty well. A true 'Martian', the filmmakers knew how to play this to
their advantage, to create some comedic scenes. And Butterfield did
well at expressing the emotions of his character to portray his
cluelessness of being on Earth.
His chemistry with Robertson is awkward at first, and doesn't get much better. To be honest, they don't really seem like a good fit together. She does look quite mature for him, and according to the dates on IMDb, she's about 7 years older. She doesn't look it, but he definitely looks quite young.
Also, I guess there isn't much substance behind the story. They are focused on that one mission to find his dad, and while obstacles come, everything is eventually fine and dandy. More backstory on the other characters would have been appreciated.
Nonetheless, the visuals are quite well done, and some of the aerial shots provide a nice touch. There are also some songs in the soundtrack that I enjoyed listening to.
Overall, an intriguing concept that suffers due to an insubstantial story.
His chemistry with Robertson is awkward at first, and doesn't get much better. To be honest, they don't really seem like a good fit together. She does look quite mature for him, and according to the dates on IMDb, she's about 7 years older. She doesn't look it, but he definitely looks quite young.
Also, I guess there isn't much substance behind the story. They are focused on that one mission to find his dad, and while obstacles come, everything is eventually fine and dandy. More backstory on the other characters would have been appreciated.
Nonetheless, the visuals are quite well done, and some of the aerial shots provide a nice touch. There are also some songs in the soundtrack that I enjoyed listening to.
Overall, an intriguing concept that suffers due to an insubstantial story.
