USA TODAY International Edition
Sentimental ‘ Space Between Us’ fails to launch
Girl from Earth meets boy from Mars in YA sci- fi flick
A Mars chocolate bar being happily eaten by a kid from the red planet is the least cheesy aspect of The Space Be
tween Us, a sappy and ridiculous teen romance that’s wholly unconvincing in its young love. Directed by Peter Chelsom ( Serendipity), the mawkish production ( egEEout of four; rated PG- 13; in theaters now) redefines complicated long- distance relationships as good- natured Gardner ( Asa Butterfield), who’s spent his first 16 years on Mars, comes to Earth to hang with his feisty Colorado pen pal Tulsa ( Britt Robertson).
Their relationship quickly blossoms ( duh), there’s fish- outof- water hijinks as the Martian boy looks for the dad he never knew, but the whole sci- fi narrative collapses into a mess of illogical story beats and groaninducing quasi- tragic bits.
Space opens in futuristic 2018 with a group of astronauts being sent to Mars for a four- year stint. Their leader Sarah ( Janet Montgomery) discovers she’s pregnant two months into their journey to their new home, and the film’s most interesting moral premise is broached: Do you risk bringing a baby into the world in the name of science? Or do you head home for everybody’s safety?
But that is quickly moved past to dive into the first dose of melodrama: Sarah goes into labor as soon as she lands, which brings a healthy baby boy yet kills her in the process. ( And for a bunch of NASA folks who didn’t expect to be expecting, they are inexplicably well- prepared for delivery, right down to the striped hospital blankets.)
The film then moves into its primary young- adult story, where Gardner comes to Earth and escapes his fellow NASA folks to meet up with Tulsa and go on a road trip, with grown- ups in hot pursuit: his Mars mother figure ( Carla Gugino) and the tech guru ( Gary Oldman) who’s been keeping Gardner’s existence a secret nearly 20 years. Because of the difference in gravity and environment between the planets, Gardner has an enlarged heart, so he’s on deadline to live a normal life and find his dad before his body gives out.
There are nice lighthearted moments between Butterfield and Robertson as the romantic leads fall into an adoring rhythm. Tulsa is a foster child whose icy exterior is melted by Gardner’s naively sweet nature, though Allan Loeb’s screenplay oddly showcases him as more alien than human as he explores Earth.
Even though he’s been raised on old- school Hollywood romances and the German fantasy
Wings of Desire — and been around real people on Mars — Gardner is wholly shocked by the sight of a horse.
For a boy who’s had a life of human interaction and access to the Internet, he shouldn’t have the personality of E. T.
While the adults are guilty of histrionics, the youngsters at least give the plot a slight lift as fast friends before that dynamic grows painfully sentimental, too. The ships might take off to an uncharted frontier, but Space fails to launch, relying on emotional manipulation seen far too often.