Review-Space Cadet

Only slightly better than 2024's other "real life" space movie

Every once in a while, I pop onto a streaming service and just see what’s new. I’ll pick a film that piques my interest and check it out. I recently did this with Amazon Prime and was curious to find the romantic comedy Space Cadet on the service.

Emma Roberts is Rex, a Florida party girl who has always dreamed of being an astronaut.

I drop this film into what I’m now calling “real life” space movies. It’s not science fiction in that it takes place in the real world with. The other movie that I would put in this category from this year is I.S.S. It’s a fine line once you start digging in. Gravity is real life and The Martian straddles the line because it’s based in some science, but way beyond our current capabilities while Ad Astra, Interstellar, and even Life I would put solidly in science fiction. But back to Space Cadet.

The story here is more romantic comedy than anything else mentioned above. Rex (Emma Roberts) is a 20-something in Florida working as a bartender, but she has always dreamed of going to space. We get flashbacks at the beginning of the film to a younger Rex watching shuttle launches with her mom who we find out has since passed away, leaving Rex and her dad on their own. When her friend Nadine (Poppy Liu) doctors her resume before Rex sends it to NASA, she suddenly looks like the perfect candidate for the space program.

Upon arriving at NASA for astronaut training, Rex meets fellow asscans (astronaut candidates) Dr. Stacy Kellogg (Desi Lydic taking a break from The Daily Show), Violet (Kuhoo Verma), Grace (Yasha Jackson) and more, all much more qualified in real life than Rex. What follows is a standard montage of astronaut training from physical tests to mental exercises and the obligatory, “we have to let several of you go” every few minutes. It ends up feeling more like a glorified reality show than what astronaut training is truly like.

Add to this the NASA administrators in the form of Logan O’Leary (Tom Hopper), a British import in charge of the training alongside Pam Proctor (Gabrielle Union). The pair don’t really fit as the training leader types and Hopper is only there to provide a romantic interest for Rex. She of course falls for O’Leary just as he is checking into her references who all turn out to be Rex’s friend Nadine pretending to be a variety of scientists and government officials.