Let me brief you on the story. Back in 2018, Nathaniel Shepherd (Gary Oldham) sends a group of astronauts to live on Mars. The lead astronaut turns out to be pregnant, which they don't realize until after liftoff. Her child, Gardner, is born on Mars and kept a secret for 16 years to avoid bad PR for Nathaniel's company. Eventually, they decide to bring Gardner (now played by Asa Butterfield) back to Earth since he wants to go. He goes through extensive surgery so that Earth's gravity doesn't crush him. He is quarantined on Earth while they test how his body is handling everything. Because he's a teenage boy, he eventually escapes the NASA facility he's at and tracks down a girl he likes who he's been Skyping (or 2034's version of Skype) with. The girl, Tulsa (Britt Robertson), immediately agrees to go on the run with him as they then track down Gardner's father. Nathaniel and Gardner's surrogate mother (Carla Gugino) are hunting them down the whole time.
If any of this sounds convoluted and implausible, you'd be right. I often refer to what I call my One Big Leap, which is a shorthand for saying "I'll accept one major conceit about the movie - coincidence or plot convenience - but after that, it needs to be consistent". The Space Between Us fails this test several times over. It uses up the Leap early with the double-whammy of Mars colony/astronaut whose pregnancy wouldn't be caught before getting sent into space. Maybe I can also give it "Gardner is successfully kept a secret for 16 years despite there being a rotation of astronauts making the trip to Mars over the years". But, there's no way that I'm believing he'd be able to successfully escape the NASA facility (they use "He was raised by scientists" as a coverall excuse for him being able to do things). Also, every beat of Gardner and Tulsa being on the run doesn't make sense. She just happens to know how to steal any car (and never get pulled over by the cops). At one point, a wire fence keeps out everyone in Nathaniel's agency from getting to Gardner. Garnder goes to a hospital for several hours and that's not immediately flagged by Nathaniel's people. Gardner sure does run a lot for someone with an enlarged heart that's ready to explode at any instant. The story is a mess of conveniences.
I like this cast a lot but not for this movie. Asa Butterfield I've liked since Hugo. He's been fine in things like Ender's Game. He tries to use his gangly awkwardness to his advantage here. The movie confuses "Gardner hasn't been on Earth before" with "Gardner has never spoken to a modern human before", which gets irritating. (He has the internet. He would've been exposed to shows, movies, and pop culture. He shouldn't been needing instructional videos from the 50s to prepare for Earth.) Britt Robertson plays a cousin of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Let's call her the "Everything Girl". She's beautiful but also an outcast and unpopular at school. She's drives a motor cycle. She flies planes. She wears sundresses. She sings and plays the piano. She steals cars. She's an unattached orphan. She's in advanced calculus classes. She's everything. Robertson plays the character well. It's very similar to her Tomorrowland character. I'd prefer a version of this with her as the main character instead. Butterfield and Robertson have more of a big sister/little brother dynamic (or maybe just buddies). The romance between them doesn't work. I didn't buy it at all. Oldman tries to do what he can with an underwritten character. Same with Gugino.
I was hoping to at least come away from the movie thinking it was charming, which I guess it is. Its heart is in the right place. But, when there's little chemistry between the leads and it has a story that strains to convolute a way to make all the events happen, it's hard to come away saying anything positive. There was nothing that actively angered me. That has to count for something. It's a movie that isn't worth watching, not an unwatchable movie.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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