Rex Simpson, played by Emma Roberts, is a Florida party girl with dreams of becoming an astronaut. She may be a bartender when we meet her at the start of the film, but as a child, Rex and her late mother would watch shuttle launches together, which sparks her initial ambitions. As she got older, life got in the way of her dreams, but she still uses her knack for science and inventions to help manatees and her dad’s “ghost hunting” business. At her high school reunion, she reconnects with a former student who is now a space mogel who tells Rex how inspiring she was to him. This launches us into the main plot: Rex signs up for a NASA astronaut training program.
At this point, the entire audience is thinking of the very obvious connection: this is Legally Blonde in space. From screenplay standards, that’s a pretty solid pitch for a fun streaming comedy to watch before the fireworks on the 4th of July. The screenplay, written by the director, Liz W. Garcia, follows that structure for the most part. It’s when the specifics about Rex’s origins get lost that we don’t remember what movie we’re supposed to be watching. Rex gets selected to join the astronaut training program with the instistance of Pam, played by Gabrielle Union, one of the leads in choosing who gets into the program. She gives an empowered plea to the board that they need to give Rex a chance because it’s the same thinking that gave Pam an opportunity to work for NASA. That’s all well and good, but it’s revealed immediately after that Rex’s friend, played by Poppy Liu, completely rewrote her application to include lies about graduating from MIT, flying jets, and winning Pulitzer prizes. With a story as straightforward as Legally Blonde in space, this wrinkle adds a lot of unneeded confusion to the story. There’s no reason Union’s character would have to make such a personal case to give Rex a chance if her application claims she’s perfect for the job. The lie mostly serves to have an extremely thin B-plot where Logan, another one of the leads in the program, played by Tom Hopper, has to call each one of Rex’s “references” (they’re all Poppy Liu doing exaggerated accents) to confirm that she is legitimate. These scenes are convoluted, unfunny, and unfortunately, hold the entire conceit of the film together.
While the lie is being stretched, Rex is doing pretty good. She’s making friends with her roomie, Violet, played by Kuhoo Verma, she’s turning heads with her unusual vocabulary (calling exciting things ‘hardcore’ and saying ‘frickin’), and she’s actually doing quite well in training. One of the biggest problems this film has is essentially throwing away Rex’s characterization for most of the second act. So much of the second act is about the other astronaut candidates (ASCANs for short) struggling with training just as much as Rex. There’s no real reason why she had to be this nobody from Florida that had to lie to get in if ex-military guys and doctors in physics are also having an equally hard time. There’s no Florida party girl specifics that Rex uses to help the others. The closest thing is a scene where they all have to run on a treadmill for a long time and to motivate everyone, she starts singing “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. It’s a cute scene, but it doesn’t connect with anything we know about her. It’s only in the last act where all the gator wrangling and bedazzling get brought up to save the day, but at that point, you forget why they’re even brought up.
It isn’t just Rex who’s character is a complete dud. All of these characters are one note. Logan, who is essentially playing a foil to Rex, it’s a hoity toity British guy who plays by the rules until it’s time to be her love interest for the last 20 minutes. Nadine’s (Liu) main deal is that she’s dumb and pregnant. Lovely. The closest thing to a complex character in this film is one of the ASCANs played by Desi Lydic. She’s a no-nonsense doctor of physics who is skeptical of Rex the whole time, but has a big mental breakdown during one of the more intense simulations, which grounds her and makes her feel more human. Columbian singer Sebastián Yatra plays Toddrick, the Elon Musk-esque former classmate of Rex who comes in at the beginning and then comes to save the day at the very end. They introduce him like he would be the head of the company she applies to and possibly, the love interest of the film, but he’s just a catalyst and a deus ex machina with all the acting chops of a singer who has never acted before this film.
1.5 out of 5 stars
Space Cadet is perfectly serviceable for a film in the background during an Independance Day barbeque. For anyone looking for some light hearted laughs, fun set pieces, and heartwarming characters, I’d suggest looking elsewhere.
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