I'm a space head. I love space. I love the rockets, I love the space business, I love the ideas and the possibilities. I'm usually a sucker for a good near future sci-fi film. Don't care too much for space horror, don't know why that's a thing.
Here's were I'm going with this. I love this move. All of the set pieces, the story elements, the production design, and the script are aimed straight at my heart and I fell for it. Having said that, there is so much wrong with it from the script, to the set pieces, to the characterizations, the acting, story continuity, and how they handle teenagers in general, ugh! There is a huge problem that I can't get away from, and the only reason for the 5 out of 10 stars....real time communication between Mars and Earth. I get why they do it, I'm sure it was a totally conscious choice on the parts of the producers and director, it lends itself to the story that is hard to have without it. But it's completely distracting. I found I was trying to convince myself that they were presenting the real-time communication in an artistic manner staged to resemble real-time when in fact they were communicating with lag. But at one point a main characters on Earth interrupts a main character on Mars. Nope, that's where I just can't. The Martian, Gravity, Ad Astra, they all handle this well and incorporate the lag into the story. I just don't see why The Space Between Us couldn't do the same.
OK, enough of all that. Let's get to the stuff that matters. Asa Butterfield is in rare form. He moves past a stoic and enigmatic boy wonder in Ender's Game and transitions to solid front man. I would say he is the best actor in the film but Gary Oldman is in this picture and I'm not ready to go there yet. Britt Robertson is barely hanging onto her character. Which is unfortunate. She's had a charm I've enjoyed watching over the years. I'm still not ready to call her mediocre career a result of the projects she has chosen or if it is, in fact, just her. Carla Gugina isn't good but she's was one of my childhood crushes, soooo, I don't care.
The Space Between Us is a version of the future that NASA and Boeing fancy. I don't think it will look like that, just in terms of hardware. Right now it's a future that SpaceX and Elon Musk envisions, whether NASA likes it or not. The concept of the movie is good, it's tragic, compelling, draws us not only into the main characters but also the main problem that the movie proposes with children being born on Mars, they can't come home, and what is home to someone who has no parents. This movies explores those ideas well using conventional devices like foster children and unconventional plot mechanisms like Martian effects on human physiology.
The penultimate scene to the end is absurd but I cried anyway, the end is perfect and usually the type of ending I crave. Give me a hint of hope, with a dash of realistic snap back, then bring it home with cinematic pace. Don't let the 5 out of 10 fool you, just watch this movie.
Here's were I'm going with this. I love this move. All of the set pieces, the story elements, the production design, and the script are aimed straight at my heart and I fell for it. Having said that, there is so much wrong with it from the script, to the set pieces, to the characterizations, the acting, story continuity, and how they handle teenagers in general, ugh! There is a huge problem that I can't get away from, and the only reason for the 5 out of 10 stars....real time communication between Mars and Earth. I get why they do it, I'm sure it was a totally conscious choice on the parts of the producers and director, it lends itself to the story that is hard to have without it. But it's completely distracting. I found I was trying to convince myself that they were presenting the real-time communication in an artistic manner staged to resemble real-time when in fact they were communicating with lag. But at one point a main characters on Earth interrupts a main character on Mars. Nope, that's where I just can't. The Martian, Gravity, Ad Astra, they all handle this well and incorporate the lag into the story. I just don't see why The Space Between Us couldn't do the same.
OK, enough of all that. Let's get to the stuff that matters. Asa Butterfield is in rare form. He moves past a stoic and enigmatic boy wonder in Ender's Game and transitions to solid front man. I would say he is the best actor in the film but Gary Oldman is in this picture and I'm not ready to go there yet. Britt Robertson is barely hanging onto her character. Which is unfortunate. She's had a charm I've enjoyed watching over the years. I'm still not ready to call her mediocre career a result of the projects she has chosen or if it is, in fact, just her. Carla Gugina isn't good but she's was one of my childhood crushes, soooo, I don't care.
The Space Between Us is a version of the future that NASA and Boeing fancy. I don't think it will look like that, just in terms of hardware. Right now it's a future that SpaceX and Elon Musk envisions, whether NASA likes it or not. The concept of the movie is good, it's tragic, compelling, draws us not only into the main characters but also the main problem that the movie proposes with children being born on Mars, they can't come home, and what is home to someone who has no parents. This movies explores those ideas well using conventional devices like foster children and unconventional plot mechanisms like Martian effects on human physiology.
The penultimate scene to the end is absurd but I cried anyway, the end is perfect and usually the type of ending I crave. Give me a hint of hope, with a dash of realistic snap back, then bring it home with cinematic pace. Don't let the 5 out of 10 fool you, just watch this movie.