Review: 'The Space Between Us' Is a Great Concept Hurt by Half-Hearted Effort

— -- Rated - PG-13Starring Gary Oldman, Asa ButterfieldThree out of five stars

Gary Oldman plays Nathaniel Shepherd, the visionary head of a company that specializes in space exploration. His goal is to form a colony on Mars called East Texas. We first meet Shepherd at a press conference that has the production value of a well-produced high school musical -- and that’s not a compliment. Very little effort is put into making this film look realistic, which is unfortunate. It was clearly a ploy by the filmmakers to stay within budget.

Things don’t go as planned with Shepherd's mission -- namely, the astronaut in charge of it got pregnant beforehand, a fact revealed when the mission is about a third of the way to Mars -- too far to turn back to Earth.

So the pregnancy is kept a secret, and Gardner Elliot (Asa Butterfield) becomes the first human born on Mars, though his mother dies shortly after his birth. Yet still, Gardner's birth is kept a secret, and none but those on Mars and a select few on Earth know of his existence.

At age 16, Gardner is brilliant -- which, as he points out, is what happens when you’re raised in a bubble by scientists. He also forges a relationship with Tulsa (Britt Robertson), a 16-year-old high school student he meets in an online chat room. She thinks he lives in New York and suffers from a rare bone disease. For her part, she’s spent her entire life bouncing from one foster family to another.

Gardner is champing at the bit to go to Earth, meet Tulsa, learn more about his mother and, hopefully, meet his father. The rub is, because he was raised on Mars, his bone density, lungs and heart may not be able to handle the atmosphere and gravity of Earth. In other words, the trip could kill him.

But of course, Gardner gets his wish, whereupon teen romantic adventure ensues.

In real life, Butterfield is a few years younger than Robertson but they have great chemistry, which speaks to the fact they are two of Hollywood’s best young actors. They do their best with a predictable script and inconsistent production values in a movie that occasionally feels like one you would be more likely to find on the Hallmark channel than in a movie theater.

Thematically, "The Space Between Us" may speak to teens who feel disenfranchised and misunderstood. Ultimately, though, it’s a case study of a great concept diminished by a half-hearted effort.