Let me tell you a little something about the Greens.
First, there’s Cricket, the thrill-seeking and wildly unpredictable son. Then, we’ve got the unique and whimsical daughter, Tilly. Up next is family patriarch Bill Green, a loving father but overwhelmed farmer. And finally, there’s Gramma. If you threaten her son or grandkids, she’ll come after you with a sword, mace or even her prosthetic leg in a pinch. But she also loves distributing kisses and hugs.
Bill and his kids moved to Big City to live with Gramma after they lost their farm. And the family has adjusted. They’ve made friends and even converted Gramma’s yard into a profitable vegetable garden.
But after working so hard to get their lives back together, they’re ready for a vacation. Cricket knows just the thing: a luxurious stay at Big Tech’s Space Hotel in, you guessed it, space.
There’s just a little matter of funding this spacecation. Though the Greens work hard, they don’t make enough to cover the $10 million a night stay.
Luckily, Cricket has the solution for that, too. In addition to creating the Space Hotel, Big Tech has also created a farm located on an asteroid. And the farmbots created to harvest the plants are malfunctioning.
So, Big Tech CEO Gwendolyn Zapp makes the Greens an offer: Go to the asteroid and harvest the produce for her and she’ll let them stay at the Space Hotel for free.
It’s not exactly the family road trip Bill had in mind for this vacation. But after a little convincing from Cricket, he finds himself saying a sentence he never thought he’d utter: “Let’s get to that asteroid and harvest those space crops so we can enjoy our space vacation at that Space Hotel!”
Bill and Cricket spend most of the film butting heads. That tension starts when Cricket realizes his dad’s surprise vacation destination is simply a repeat of the family road trip they took the year before. Cricket finds that tired idea incredibly boring, so he arranges for the space-cation behind his dad’s back, lying all the while.
That deception and some of the arguments that follow aren’t good, obviously. But they set up the movie’s ultimately positive resolution to that conflict.
As the story progresses, Cricket and bill both realize they’ve made mistakes on the trip, and they own up to those errors in judgment, apologizing to each other. And instead of letting their differences continue to drive them apart, Bill and Cricket play to their strengths, using their unique abilities to save the day.
Several characters risk their lives to help others. Though Cricket and Tilly’s parents are divorced, the adults are on good terms. And their mom even helps Cricket to reconcile with his dad.
Tilly finds and befriends “Cookie,” a sentient blob of goo created by Big Tech to clean glass that actually breaks every piece of glass it touches.
While harvesting crops, Cricket purposely sticks two apples into the rear of his overalls, enhancing his figure there. We see part of Gramma’s bare rear as she prepares to “moon” the moon. Bill’s upper torso is exposed when he swims. A young boy is hopeful that the conga dance will suit his “curvaceous” figure. He later does the dance to distract people, using his hips and rear end to bump folks around. Two men order coffee together, and one is slightly effeminate in voice and manner.
Characters are often in peril (several almost die after getting shot into space without a tether), but nobody dies. There are several vehicle crashes and explosions. Lasers are fired, but nobody gets hit. Malfunctioning robots attack the Greens after a typo programs them to harm instead of farm. Gramma packs an arsenal of weapons in her bag for the trip. A woman’s eye blackens after she’s shoved into an escape pod.
Lots of slapstick violence, much of it mean-spirited. We briefly glimpse the warped bodies of people Big Tech tried and failed to teleport (it’s unclear if they’re alive still). There are some jokes about death and murder. A spaceship commander is forcibly put into a cryogenic chamber for much of the film. (She’s ultimately OK.)
Many people nearly die when an asteroid veers toward Big City. The person responsible shows little regard for the lives about to be lost and instead boards a rocket for Mars to avoid the destruction.
[Spoiler Warning: Big City and its citizens are ultimately saved by the heroic actions of the Green family.]
“Dang” is the harshest word we hear. A few people use “gosh,” and there are a couple of unfinished “what the’s.” There’s also a near misuse of God’s name—the character says, “Oh my gah!”
Gramma screams, “Yippie-ki-yay mower-tractors” at some farming robots—a reference to a much harsher line from Die Hard.
None.
The film’s villain is driven by revenge. When she finally succeeds, she notes that it doesn’t bring her satisfaction. But instead of putting aside her villainous ways, she hunkers down, determined that her next vengeful scheme will finally bring her joy.
Cricket in particular can be very bratty and spoiled (he rolls his eyes at his dad in one scene). His impulsive actions often put his family in danger. And his selfish choices are the primary cause of the family vacation going haywire.
Child characters lie, disobey rules and break into places they don’t belong, sometimes aided by the adults who should be correcting them. And adults commit similar wrongs too, for that matter. Many insults are hurled in anger. There’s a bit of name-calling.
A brief shot shows folks gambling. Someone pulls out their phone to film a natural disaster instead of getting to safety or trying to aid others.
There’s no toilet humor, per say, but there are many jokes involving rear ends. Bill turns green when he gets nauseous. Cookie spits up green goo a couple of times.
Big Tech shoots trash into space, using the galaxy as a giant landfill. Later, a “trasheroid” puts people in danger.
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation has some questionable behaviors that parents may not want their kids to imitate. But it also includes some nice lessons about family, particularly as they pertain to fathers and sons who don’t necessarily see eye to eye.
Cricket is bold and adventurous. His dad is cautious and “dull.” So their ideas of an awesome family vacation were probably never going to align.
It’s safe to say that most parents won’t want their kids to mimic Cricket’s response to his dad’s “boring” trip though. I.e., lying, cryofreezing a spaceship captain and otherwise putting the family’s lives at risk.
However, Cricket (with a little help from his mom) realizes that even though Bill doesn’t like his ideas doesn’t mean his dad doesn’t like him. Rather, they’re both just trying to do what they think is best for the family. Cricket wants them to have fun; Bill wants them to be safe.
They both apologize for their hurtful words, reconciling and turning the family vacation into the trip of a lifetime.
That makes for a really nice story, but families may still want to exercise some caution. There’s a fair bit of toilet humor. Slapstick violence is frequent. And then there’s just some mean-spirited and bratty behavior from Cricket.
Those concerns won’t necessarily make this movie unwatchable, but they might require a bit more hand-holding from moms and dads who don’t want their kids acting out.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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