Passengers
The spacecraft Aurora is transporting 5,000 passengers to Homestead 2, to colonise a new planet. It will take 120 years to travel there from Earth and each passenger is kept in a state of hibernation. Engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) wakes up 90 years early due to a pod malfunction and finds himself alone with no other company but an android barman (Michael Sheen). A year later he is joined by writer Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) and the pair must deal with the consequences.
It's an interesting premise but one that gets somewhat squandered. I greatly preferred the first half of the film where Pratt's character attempts to come to terms with a lifetime of isolation and what is probably best described as an ethical quandary*. I like both Pratt and Lawrence as screen presences and their chemistry carries them a certain amount of the way here. But in the second half of the film, things take a turn for the shitbonkers and suffers as a result.
Michael Sheen meanwhile is delightful. Dry, funny and a little sinister. Although it's difficult to explain why he's around and available to serve drinks on a ship where none of the passengers are supposed to wake up for 90 years. That is one of the many glaring plotholes and unanswered questions in the film that leaves one dissatisfied with the outcome. And there have been films recently that have dealt with Passenger's central themes in a much more interesting way (Gravity, The Martian).
Passengers is ok, but not an awful lot more than that. It won't live long in the memory. But as unchallenging multiplex popcorn fodder goes, it's perfectly fine.
*This is the part of the film I would most like to talk about but for the sake of spoilers I won't. Although there are probably too many spoilers in these reviews anyway.
It's an interesting premise but one that gets somewhat squandered. I greatly preferred the first half of the film where Pratt's character attempts to come to terms with a lifetime of isolation and what is probably best described as an ethical quandary*. I like both Pratt and Lawrence as screen presences and their chemistry carries them a certain amount of the way here. But in the second half of the film, things take a turn for the shitbonkers and suffers as a result.
Michael Sheen meanwhile is delightful. Dry, funny and a little sinister. Although it's difficult to explain why he's around and available to serve drinks on a ship where none of the passengers are supposed to wake up for 90 years. That is one of the many glaring plotholes and unanswered questions in the film that leaves one dissatisfied with the outcome. And there have been films recently that have dealt with Passenger's central themes in a much more interesting way (Gravity, The Martian).
Passengers is ok, but not an awful lot more than that. It won't live long in the memory. But as unchallenging multiplex popcorn fodder goes, it's perfectly fine.
*This is the part of the film I would most like to talk about but for the sake of spoilers I won't. Although there are probably too many spoilers in these reviews anyway.
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