‘Crater’ Review: Kid Cudi and Isaiah Russell-Bailey in Disney+’s Tender Sci-Fi Adventure

Scratch a light-hearted Disney movie and you can often see tragedy and social problems bubbling beneath it. Such is the case with the new film from – as marketing takes the trouble to inform us – the producers of Stranger things, about a road trip taken by a group of teenagers. This road trip happens to take place on the moon in this coming-of-age sci-fi adventure movie that looks like a cross between Stand-by Me And The Goonies if they happened in space. Though the disparate thematic elements don’t fit together seamlessly Craterthe film offers enough fun and suspense to swell the ranks of aspiring astronauts.

The story revolves around Caleb (Isaiah Russell-Bailey, Netflix’s Family reunion), who has spent his entire life on the moon, where his widowed father Michael (a quietly moving Scott Mescudi, better known as Kid Cudi) has just died while working as a miner. As is apparently customary in such tragic situations, Caleb is sent to the distant colony of Omega, which involves a space journey of 75 years during which he is put into a cryonic state that does not allow him to age a day. Of course, this means that he will never see his current friends again.

Before starting his fateful journey, Caleb decides to travel with his friends to a certain lunar crater that his father had urged him to see. He is joined by the dashingly handsome Dylan (Billy Barratt), the carefree Borney (Orson Hong), the physically imposing yet gentle Marcus (Thomas Boyce) and a new female arrival on the moon, Addison (Mckenna Grace). Ghostbusters: Afterlife).

The gang “borrow” a lunar rover, search for the crater, stopping along the way to do the kind of thing any group of kids on the lunar surface would do, which is to play baseball in zero gravity (Addison assures them that the sport is all the rage on the planet). earth) and another game involving jetpacks where one of them is almost permanently sent into space. They also come across a bizarre outpost that turns out to be a model home for Omega in which the “space phantoms” they encounter turn out to be artfully arranged mannequins. Of course, it’s a perfect place for an impromptu dance and a feast of food from the well-stocked pantry.

Along the way, Caleb is coached by his late father, who appears in flashbacks and makes clear the close bond between father and son. Crater is most effective at conveying these tender emotions, as well as in the heartwarming portrayal of teenage friendship and moral support among the young characters, who refreshingly don’t engage in the kind of vicious taunting so common in these sorts of stories. It also provides some real suspense in the later scenes, including a gripping episode featuring a meteor shower that may prove too intense for younger viewers.

The screenplay by John Griffin (creator of the cable sci-fi series By) also goes out of its way to infuse the story with sociological elements about conservation and exploitative labor practices that feel a bit heavy-handed and seem awkward in the more frivolous moments. The poignant ending also proves to be unusually emotional for a movie aimed at kids, but it’s beautifully handed over by director Kyle Patrick Alvarez, who works in a very different way here than his last feature film, The Stanford Prison Experiment.

While Crater doesn’t quite live up to its considerable ambitions, it nevertheless earns points for attempting to be more than just another sci-fi adventure story. It features plenty of visual imagination and benefits greatly from the great performances of the young cast, especially Russell-Bailey, who anchors the fanciful course with impressive youthful gravitas.