Space Cadet Movie Review: An underdeveloped space-comedy

When Rex Simpson (Emma Roberts) sits for an interview at the Johnson Space Center in Houston amidst top scientists and astronauts, she screams, “I'm so psyched!”. This isn’t too different from what I wanted to feel while watching Space Cadet, Prime Video's new sci-fi comedy. A happy-go-lucky Rex gets the urge to reclaim her dream of becoming an astronaut on a ‘crescent moon’ day and decides to ‘be herself,’ while she somehow tries to wiggle her way into NASA. Around the midway point, we realise that this is a high school party entertainer masquerading as a space drama, but alas, the familiarity of the plot and the formulaic structure means that there isn’t too much entertainment on offer with both objectives.

Director: Liz W. Garcia

Cast: Emma Roberts, Tom Hopper, Poppy Liu, and Gabrielle Union

Streamer: Prime Video

The Simpsons family, just like in the famous sitcom, is as diagonally different from any common two-member family as it can get. Daughter Rex is an innovator by day while juggling being a bartender and a dreamer by night. The father is a "paranormal tour guide" (yes, I had to confirm it twice).

Rex should potentially be relatable, but her unidimensional characterisation makes it hard to associate with her or root for her, even though she exudes charm with the twinkling stars in her blonde hair and neon-coloured outfits. Although she expresses love for her father, we never see this get translated on screen. Rex most just wants to have fun in this film that lacks any plot-related pleasures. She throws words like 'rad' and 'hard-core' and laughs pretentiously when scientists mention their team as 'AsCons' (a term used for the team in training). The film tries to sell her as a cool character, but is someone cool if they end up annoying you?

Just like Rex's dreams, Space Cadet too gets unrealistic from time to time. When a doctored application by Nadine Cai (Poppy Liu) goes through NASA, not even one experienced official from the Johnson Space Center checks the veracity of her application. Even when a procedural background check happens, Dr Logan O'Leary (Tom Hopper) is convinced that Rex's references stand true, although the names have no website to uphold their academic credentials. It’s like the scientists forgot about Google search.

Space Cadet is full of supposed wise lines from Rex, like “the universe is made up of energy” and “people are made of stardust”. She might be fascinated by it all, but we feel forced to embrace all this ‘magical beauty’, so much so that I dreaded the next time Rex would go off on something about the ‘universe’.

However, in the vast void of Space Cadet, we do find some glimmers of hope. Violet Vislawski (Kuhoo Verma) and Rex's natural camaraderie while they hustle through the space program lights up the screen. It’s also heartwarming when Rex pacifies Violet through a panic attack, but then again, she also says, “It is all in your head”, and rather invalidates her experience in the first place.

Space Cadet aims for the stars, but with unrelatable characters, shoddy VFX, and a bland storyline, it struggles to escape our own atmosphere.