Gary Oldman, who for some reason gets top billing here despite not being the main character, appears to only show up to collect a paycheque, chewing the scenery to the extent that you're briefly taken out of the film's story every time he shows up on screen. I imagine that him signing on was what helped the film get made in the first place, but you're not going to find him giving a performance that's up to snuff with what we're used to seeing from the man.

But even considering all of these questionable elements, nothing feels more egregious than the screenplay which comes from writer Allan Loeb, who recently gave us the cinematic atrocity that was Collateral Beauty in mid-December. The script is packed with cheesy overly-sentimental dialogue and gaping inconsistencies that show the mark of someone that's more interested in sticking to a basic formula than anything. There's a twist in the story that any observant viewer would be able to catch from the first act onward, but once it unfurls in the film's last few minutes, it becomes so overbearing that you can almost feel Loeb shouting down at the audience.

I'm willing to bet that teenage audience members, who The Space Between Us was ostensibly designed for, will be less harsh on the film, and fall for the charms it presents. But its hard to overlook the fact that the film feels stitched together from a myriad of other sci-fi and teen romance films from the past few years, with nothing substantial enough to make it stand out. I shouldn't have expected much given the film comes from director Peter Chelsom, best known for Town & Country, the 2001 mega-flop that killed Warren Beatty's career, as well as The Hannah Montana Movie. You're much better off seeing almost anything else playing at the cinema, as this is the kind of film that will quickly be forgotten, like countless other genre pics releasing on Super Bowl weekend.