Space Cadet is a spiritual successor to Legally Blonde

In 2001, Legally Blonde informed a technology of ladies they could possibly be unapologetically girly, unabashedly plucky — and nonetheless sharp, good, and able to stepping into Harvard Regulation Faculty, turning into attorneys, and successful a landmark case. It’s a staple of girl-power film lists, successful and memorable sufficient to encourage a sequel, a musical, and an upcoming spinoff series.

Prime Video’s Emma Roberts car Space Cadet takes a comparable route with a radically totally different occupation. This time, the protagonist is a big-hearted Florida celebration woman who will get into NASA’s astronaut candidate program. The parallels are intentional: Author-director Liz W. Garcia informed us Legally Blonde was a enormous inspiration for her film.

That isn’t a unhealthy factor: Space Cadet is a sturdy addition to the girl-power canon, filled with glittery, sticker-covered notebooks and tie-dyed T-shirts. Garcia’s film is the proper successor, including simply sufficient to the system to make it stand out, however maintaining the identical coronary heart and message that resonated with audiences 23 years in the past.

[Ed. note: This review contains some slight setup spoilers for Space Cadet.]

Emma Roberts (American Horror Story) performs Tiffany “Rex” Simpson, a bartender whose childhood goals of turning into an astronaut have been dashed when her mom was identified with a terminal sickness. Rex selected to flip down a full-ride scholarship to school so she may deal with supporting her dad and mom. After a highschool reunion, the place she reunites with a pleasant former educational rival who’s discovered success in area tourism, she decides to pursue her goals, hoping the admissions committee at NASA will see her potential. Her finest pal, Nadine (Poppy Liu), takes issues into her personal fingers and ornaments Rex’s resume a little. Rex will get into this system, however doesn’t initially discover out that Nadine fabricated her credentials. Regardless that she’s burned by Nadine’s deceit, Rex is decided to see the celebs, so she decides to see the facade by means of to the top.

The comparisons between Rex and Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) in Legally Blonde are fairly evident. Like Elle earlier than her, Rex is clearly succesful. She’s good and a fast learner, she is aware of her means round utilized physics and mechanical engineering, and she or he’s a unbelievable crew participant. However what units Rex aside is her motivations, and the entire motive she’s misplaced: She obtained screwed over by life, and this is her probability to go to area. Her drive doesn’t come from attempting to get again a boy who dumped her for being too girly and fun-loving. (No shade to Elle! Spite is a nice motivator.)

Picture: Amazon Prime Video/Everett Assortment

Rex’s motivations — and the truth that her resume is a lie — add a grittier texture and extra intense stakes to her journey. She’s a nice character, and Roberts imbues her with a lot of coronary heart. Seeing her ricochet round like a brilliant, sparkly rocket amid the extra severe, conventional astronaut candidates is completely great, particularly as they begin to heat up to her.

Due to this system’s cutthroat eliminations, a few of Rex’s most attention-grabbing relationships don’t get a lot display time — like her reference to secret romance novelist Violet (Kuhoo Verma), who gives to catch Rex up on theoretical science in change for Rex serving to her ace the bodily parts of the coaching. And her romance with good-looking but tight-laced program coordinator Logan (The Umbrella Academy’s Tom Hopper… in glasses and cute sweaters <3 <3) feels a little shoehorned in, prefer it’s an obligation for the style.

Logan is dreamy, and his crush on Rex is endearing. However when half of his display time is simply him performing his job duties and calling up Rex’s skilled references (all Nadine, utilizing totally different cellphone numbers and more and more elaborate theatrics), Space Cadet doesn’t actually take the mandatory time to promote their mutual romantic attraction as one thing extra than simply a examine field on a listing of tropes.

Picture: Amazon Prime Video/Everett Assortment

However that operating gag with Nadine is hilarious, as are the scenes with Rex’s ghost-tour information dad (Gossip Lady’s Sam Robards), and the moments when her party-girl life-style is available in clutch and helps her with conventional astronaut coaching. Garcia does a nice job of balancing the humor with the extra grounded emotional stakes. A part of the explanation Rex is so pushed is as a result of her mother fostered her love of science and area; she desires to make her mother proud. That relationship is threaded all through the film, and Rex by no means resents her mom or her state of affairs — she simply needs it could possibly be totally different and in the end lets it gasoline her.

Space Cadet is extremely humorous, but it surely’s additionally about somebody pursuing a life she thought she’d missed out on, and discovering her personal strengths when she looks like she will be able to’t measure up. Legally Blonde had Elle discover a ardour for regulation, although individuals round her turned up their noses at her ambitions; in Space Cadet, Rex grits her enamel and lets her distinctive background encourage her as an alternative of holding her again. Like Rex’s moonlit seaside events, this film is a good time — however Space Cadet is additionally inspiring sufficient that it’d persuade viewers to take a second whereas laughing to search for on the metaphorical stars and determine to pursue one thing they as soon as talked themselves out of.

Space Cadet is now streaming on Prime Video.