"Space Dreams"
| None | Light | Moderate | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | ||||
| Violence | ||||
| Sex | ||||
| Nudity |
Watch:
What You Need To Know:
STAR KID teaches several positive messages in its frenetic, enjoyable tale. Spencer learns to face his fears and begin the healing process over the death of his mother. He also learns that his sense of responsibility and compassion for others is more heroic than having incredible super powers. Finally, both he and the school bully learn that using their brains is just as important as using their brawn. Director Manny Coto, who is also credited with writing the screenplay, has fashioned a work that, though lightweight and predictable at times, has energy and humor. Many older children and young teenagers will find STAR KID to their liking, but the alien monster may be too scary for younger children.
Content:
(H, B, L, V, M) Pagan worldview with some moral elements; two mild profanities & one extended reference to urinating; scenes of mild action violence with punching, kicking & flipping against a scary-looking alien monster plus accidental destruction of two houses; and, miscellaneous immorality such as deliberately wrecking a man's workshop & stealing his car to defeat the monster.
More Detail:
Joseph Mazzello, the engaging child actor from JURASSIC PARK and THE RIVER WILD, plays an awkward 12-year-old, named Spencer, in the family-oriented STAR KID from Trimark Pictures. Producer Jennie Lew Tugend from the FREE WILLY movies teamed up with writer/director Manny Coto to create this lively action movie after they met on the set of the TALES FROM THE CRYPT series on television. Thus, it is no surprise that STAR KID has a comic-book feel to its story of a boy who is able to get inside a powerful robot suit that magnifies his every move, giving him superhuman strength and incredible leaping powers.
As Spencer, Mazzello plays a nerdy new boy in school who is still shaken by his mother’s death. A bully named Turbo (Joey Simmrin) pushes Spencer around on the playground in the beginning of the movie. A girl Spencer likes has the same interest in comic books as he does, but Spencer can’t seem to get one word out when she talks with him. Meanwhile, Spencer’s father, Roland (Richard Gilliland), has buried himself in his work to numb himself from the pain of his wife’s death. The only solace Spencer has is in his comic-book idol, the Midnight Warrior, and in his friendly teacher, Miss Holloway, who advises him to face his fears.
One night while his dad is out working, Spencer sees a meteor crash nearby. He goes to an auto junkyard to investigate and finds a seven-foot-tall robotic suit, called a Cyborsuit. The suit is like a computer that can talk. It opens up for Spencer to climb inside. Spencer doesn’t realize, however, that the Cyborsuit is actually the prototype of a weapon built by a tiny race of aliens, called Trelkins, who are fighting some nasty monster invaders, called Broodwarriors. The talking suit closes Spencer up inside itself and refuses to let him out until it is able to test out its fighting capabilities. Spencer is at first frightened that the Cyborsuit won’t let him out, but he establishes a friendly relationship with the talking suit and begins to enjoy testing the capabilities of the suit, which magnifies Spencer’s own physical powers. In a series of humorous, slapstick scenes, Spencer and the Cyborsuit accidentally wreck a carnival and the inside of Spencer’s house. When one of the Broodwarriors lands on earth, the fun ends, and the two new friends must work together to defeat the evil monster. They find an unlikely ally in the bully, Turbo, who becomes Spencer’s faithful friend.
STAR KID teaches several positive messages in its frenetic, enjoyable tale. Spencer learns to face his fears and begin the healing process over the death of his mother. He also learns that his sense of responsibility and compassion for others is more heroic than having incredible super powers. Finally, both he and Turbo learn that using their brains is just as important as using their brawn.
Director Manny Coto, who is also credited with writing the screenplay, has fashioned a work that, though lightweight and predictable at times, has energy and humor. Many older children and young teenagers will find STAR KID to their liking, but the alien monster is probably too scary for younger children.
