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Space Cadet presents us with the unlikely situation of Tiffany “Rex” Simpson (Emma Roberts – Nerve) as a waitress who wants to go into space, but you just know the potential is upped when we see how much she loves the moon, how she watched space shuttle launches with her Mum – who has since passed away. Plus, she’s a science nerd with a lot of half-finished inventions in her back yard.
Rex is also shown at her 10-year high school reunion, explaining how she was going to head to Georgia Tech after graduating in 2013, but following her Mum’s death,she had to look after her Dad, even though he seems perfectly able to attend to himself, and just comes across as a lazy bum.
She’s also a girl – sorry, young woman, since Ms Roberts is now 33 – who loves to party, so how would anyone take her seriously? Clearly, only after her best friend, Nadine (Poppy Liu – Dead Ringers 2023), falsifies an application, and hey presto, Rex ends up at Space Camp… reminding me of the ’80s comedy… Space Camp.
Space Camp… sorry, Space Cadet, isn’t terrible, but its far from great. Emma Roberts keeps this film afloat, but it really didn’t need to run for nearly two hours. A straight 90 minutes would be better.
Then again, while I was hoping to like this more, it’s difficult because it’s so predictable, does nothing to stand out, and there’s about 30 minutes of content in the script, some of which just gets pointlessly repeated.
An example comes when head NASA bloke Logan O’Leary (Tom Hopper – The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) calls Rex’s reference, Nadine – posing badly as someone significantly higher up, only to be fooled by her ridiculous responses to important questions, a scene which comes up at least three times. And why would you make multiple calls?! It’s as if it was the same scene split into three sections, but for plot purposes, it is three separate calls.
There’s nothing major in Space Cadet that would make it a 12-cert, but that’s only come about because one character refers to “taking shrooms“, along with another slightly un-PG rude remark about male genitalia.
Additionally, the film is in 2.00:1, apart from a Top Gun-style flying scene, at which point the ratio changes to 2.39:1 – completely the opposite for Top Gun Maverick, itself, when it comes to that film’s IMAX scenes.
Note: There is no mid- or post-credits scene in this film.
Space Cadet is on Prime Video from Thursday July 4th, but the film isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 110 minutes
Release date: July 4th 2024
Studio: Prime Video
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1; 2.39:1 (one scenes)
Rating: 3/10
Director: Liz W Garcia
Producer: Jon Berg, Greg Silverman
Screenplay: Liz W Garcia
Music: John Debney
Cast:
Tiffany “Rex” Simpson: Emma Roberts
Logan O’Leary: Tom Hopper
Nadine Cai: Poppy Liu
Pam Proctor: Gabrielle Union
Violet Marie Vislawski: Kuhoo Verma
Dr. Stacy Kellogg: Desi Lydic
Toddrick Spencer: Sebastián Yatra
Rex’s Dad (Calvin Simpson): Sam Robards
Rudolph Bolton: Dave Foley
Grace Jackson: Yasha Jackson
Captain Jack Mancini: Andrew Call
Miriam Osprey: Josephine Huang
Hector Kaneko: Troy Iwata
Rex Simpson (8 years old): Caroline Concannon
Rex’s Mom (Tara Simpson): Natasha Warner
Gator: John Ahlin
Johnny: Tomás Matos
Bingo: Fergie L Philippe
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.