They make a big deal out of the fact that the beach house that’s their ultimate destination is in the tiny beach town of Summerland, Calif.-a few miles down the coast from Santa Barbara-but then the authorities that arrive are from Los Angeles. It’s supposed to be 16 years in the future, right? Some elements (like laptops) have a high-tech look about them, while others (like dry erase boards in a classroom and old pickup trucks and cars) are clearly from the present day or even a few decades ago. Which brings us to the multitude of distracting, inconsistent details. The two go on a road trip across the American West, stealing various cars and stopping in Las Vegas on the way to California, trying to outrun the authorities and his mounting health problems along the way. Fish-out-of-water antics involving exotic phenomena like rain aim for easy, obvious laughs, but they’re vaguely amusing because of Butterfield’s pleasingly guileless persona. He also hopes to learn the identity of his father, whom he’s seen in photos and snippets of home movies.ĭespite the physical toll it likely will take on him, Gardner makes the trek to Earth, where he promptly escapes his government handlers and seeks out Tulsa (who lives in Colorado). But Gardner’s daily chats with Robertson’s character-a similarly frustrated, isolated teen who goes by the nickname Tulsa-make him increasingly curious about Earth. Gugino plays the intelligent, supportive astronaut who was sent to East Texas to function as a mother figure to him. But that’s about the extent of the intellectual ambitions at play here.ġ6 years later, the colony is thriving and the baby has grown into an inquisitive, slightly awkward young man named Gardner Elliot. (Not a spoiler, folks-it happens early in the movie.) The ethical questions at stake are intriguing: whether Nathaniel and his team should report to the world that a boy has been born on Mars, or keep it a secret to avoid jeopardizing the mission. (There’s the glimmer of a notion that climate change is a motivating factor, but any sort of political underpinning quickly gets swept aside.) But it turns out that the lead astronaut ( Janet Montgomery) was pregnant when she boarded the rocket several months later, she dies during childbirth. He plays a Richard Branson-type billionaire explorer named Nathaniel Shepherd who’s funding a mission to set up a colony on Mars called East Texas. There’s reason for hope at the outset, though, simply through the involvement of Oldman. ![]() ![]() And a scene in which Robertson’s fiercely independent foster-child character starts playing the piano and singing a ballad in the middle of a Sam’s Club shopping spree is more likely to prompt giggles than the poignancy for which it clearly aims. Then again, awkward tonal shifts abound in the film from director Peter Chelsom, known for such early-2000s misfires including “Town & Country,” “ Serendipity” and the English-language remake of “Shall We Dance?” Chelsom, who also provides the voice of the boy’s wisecracking robot pal early on, can’t quite make the transition from a character receiving terrible news to a joyous hot air balloon festival, for example. The twists are just unbearably ridiculous, which drains all the power out of their supposed catharsis. But-like Will Smith, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren and Naomie Harris surely found while making “ Collateral Beauty”-there’s only so much you can do with a soggy Allan Loeb script. Veterans like Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino bring flashes of dignity and sometimes even emotional truth to this frequently silly enterprise.
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