Area Cadet is a religious successor to Legally Blonde

In 2001, Legally Blonde instructed a era of ladies they may very well be unapologetically girly, unabashedly plucky — and nonetheless sharp, good, and able to stepping into Harvard Legislation Faculty, turning into legal professionals, and profitable a landmark case. It’s a staple of girl-power film lists, profitable and memorable sufficient to encourage a sequel, a musical, and an upcoming spinoff sequence.

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

That isn’t a nasty factor: Area Cadet is a robust addition to the girl-power canon, stuffed with glittery, sticker-covered notebooks and tie-dyed T-shirts. Garcia’s film is the proper successor, including simply sufficient to the formulation to make it stand out, however preserving 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 show down a full-ride scholarship to varsity 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 good friend, Nadine (Poppy Liu), takes issues into her personal fingers and ornaments Rex’s resume a bit of. Rex will get into this system, however doesn’t initially discover out that Nadine fabricated her credentials. Though she’s burned by Nadine’s deceit, Rex is decided to see the celebrities, so she decides to see the facade by to the tip.

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 approach round utilized physics and mechanical engineering, and she or he’s a incredible crew participant. However what units Rex aside is her motivations, and the entire motive she’s misplaced: She obtained screwed over by life, and that 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 superb motivator.)

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 an awesome character, and Roberts imbues her with loads of coronary heart. Seeing her ricochet round like a vibrant, sparkly rocket amid the extra severe, conventional astronaut candidates is totally great, particularly as they begin to heat as much as her.

Because of the program’s cutthroat eliminations, a few of Rex’s most fascinating relationships don’t get a lot display time — like her reference to secret romance novelist Violet (Kuhoo Verma), who provides 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 bit of 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 telephone numbers and more and more elaborate theatrics), Area Cadet doesn’t actually take the mandatory time to promote their mutual romantic attraction as one thing greater than only a examine field on a listing of tropes.

However that working 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 way of life is available in clutch and helps her with conventional astronaut coaching. Garcia does an awesome job of balancing the humor with the extra grounded emotional stakes. A part of the rationale 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 may very well be totally different and finally lets it gasoline her.

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

Area Cadet is now streaming on Prime Video.