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Passengers proves Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence work well together -- and that even their chemistry isn't enough to overcome a fatally flawed story.Read critic reviews
Rent Passengers on Apple TV, Vudu, Amazon Prime Video, or buy it on Vudu, Amazon Prime Video.
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Passengers (2016)Passengers (2016)Passengers (2016)Passengers (2016)Passengers (2016)Photo Credit: Courtesy of SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC.Photo Credit: Courtesy of SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC.Photo Credit: Courtesy of SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC.Photo Credit: Courtesy of SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC.Photo Credit: Courtesy of SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC.Photo Credit: Courtesy of SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC.Passengers (2016)
On a routine journey through space to a new home, two passengers, sleeping in suspended animation, are awakened 90 years too early when their ship malfunctions. As Jim and Aurora face living the rest of their lives on board, with every luxury they could ever ask for, they begin to fall for each other, unable to deny their intense attraction until they discover the ship is in grave danger. With the lives of 5,000 sleeping passengers at stake, only Jim and Aurora can save them all.
This movie poses a legitimately interesting question. That question is simplified down to this, basically, if you were stuck on a deserted island with no hope of getting out of it, beyond a shadow of a doubt, would you, if you had the choice, bring someone along with you to ease the loneliness, knowing that you're gonna doom them to live out the rest of their lives on a deserted island with just you. Honestly, that's a very difficult question to ponder. I suppose you don't have the right to make that decision for someone else because, again, they'll spend the rest of their lives on the deserted island because you 'wished' them there. And how would you go about this? Would you tell the person that you're responsible for their being on this island? Or would you attempt to keep it a secret for as long as you could, maybe revealing the secret on your deathbed or something. That's what the question this movie poses, except instead of a deserted island, it's a spaceship traveling to a distant colony planet. Chris Pratt's character, Jim, wakes up from his hibernation pod 30 years into a trip that's meant to take 120 years. So, naturally, he's kind of fucked. He attempts to find every possible solution to this problem, from breaking into the cabin where the flight crew is in, to trying to put himself back into hibernation, among many other options. Eventually, he just stops worrying about what he can't control and chooses to, for a short while at least, enjoy the fact that he's on a luxury airship. This only holds him over for so long and, long story short, he looks at the flight manifest and finds Aurora's interview for why she's going to the colony, and why she's choosing to leave behind her friends, family and life. He comes to fall for Aurora's personality and her sense of humor and, basically, he decides to take matters into his own hands and purposely cause Aurora's pod to malfunction so she, much like him, is woken up almost 90 years prior to their arrival. As an aside, by the time he does this, Jim has been on his own for a year and three weeks. The problems start here I believe. Because Jim only debates this for, say, about five minutes. This is, of course, what you see, as I'm certain much more time passed for Jim in his world. But, really, the fact of the matter is that there's not much resistance from Jim's part to do this. It, essentially, boils down to a comedy bit with Jim and Arthur, the android bartender. Again, Jim is essentially dooming Aurora to live out the rest of her life on a deserted island with no means of escape or a way to be put back into hibernation. This is an incredibly selfish action and, yet, it doesn't really feel like that to Jim when he's debating whether to do it or not. Long story short, he releases Aurora from her pod and then she goes through some of the same things Jim initially went through as she starts to adjust to, essentially, the rest of her life. They fall in love, blah, blah, blah. And this is another interesting question that the movie brings up, without really doing much with it, and that is whether Jim and Aurora's falling in love is genuine or was it bound to be inevitable given the fact that, quite frankly, they are the only two people on 'earth' as it were. I doubt they would have fallen in love had things gone they way they were planned to go, given the differences in their 'position'. Jim's a mechanic and Aurora's a writer/journalist. You don't see many journalists married to mechanics now do you? And I wish the movie would have played with that more, because Aurora should question these things when she finds out. She should question herself about whether her feelings for Jim are genuine or not or of it's the desperate nature of the situation they find themselves in and that basic human need for some form of companionship. But no, when Aurora finds out, they just avoid each other, Aurora, rightfully, is completely pissed at Jim for taking her life away from her. But the movie never delves too deeply into all of the interesting questions at the core of its premise. I feel they're just content to let two beautiful people do their thing without really giving them much to do. That's another problem with the movie, after Aurora is released from her pod, the movie loses all sense of direction, which is strange given it's set in a spaceship that's on a journey to a very specific location. I guess it's to give these two something to distract themselves with as they face the futility of this situation, but there's no real purpose to anything that we're seeing. All you're waiting for is the eventuality of the truth being revealed to Aurora. And that's not to suggest that Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence aren't great together, because they are, it's just that they don't really get to do much with the concept. It's just two beautiful movie stars paired off together because one, they're big names and two, they're movie stars. When Aurora finds out, I don't think the movie improves much because, again, there's no real direction here. You don't know where the narrative is heading because there's no real indication of there being this overarching story. Later, however, a third person is revealed, this time from one of the crew (Laurence Fishburne). Essentially, Laurence is there for a bit of exposition in that he's the one who reveals that the spaceship has undergone massive systems failure that have all piled up to, essentially, put the entire spaceship in danger. So now it's an action movie about saving the world or, rather, this spaceship and its over 5,000 passengers and crew from death. So I feel the need to point out that this directionless affair then devolving into an action movie is part of the reason why I, ultimately, don't think I could call this a good movie. The jarring tones are incredibly noticeable. They don't slowly ease you into the action, you're thrown immediately into it and whatever issues Jim and Aurora may have had are pushed to the side. Which is fine, I completely understand since there are more pressing matters at hand. But the problem is that the first 80 or so minutes or so being so directionless without any real hint of action coming your way makes it stick out like a sore thumb when you do get it. Though, to be fair, there are some hints here and there with some screens showing systems failure, but they're so brief that I feel like they were put there just so they wouldn't have left any few ends. Also for them to avoid having people like me calling them out on how poorly they introduced the action. If it had been sprinkled throughout the movie, like teases of stuff going wrong (and stuff that's more noticeable than just a few brief scenes), then it would have worked. But they didn't, they just threw you right into it and it's like you're watching a completely different movie than you were watching the prior 80 or so minutes. Which is a shame because, again, if they had explored the interesting ideas at its core better, along with really strong leads, this could have been quite a good movie. Perhaps it would not have set the world on fire, but it would have been better. The action isn't bad, but it just didn't really do much. And, of course, in the end, love triumphed over all. Which is way too easy of a resolution for Aurora and Jim after what Jim did, but whatever. The epilogue with Aurora leaving a message for the passengers are crew was also needlessly sentimental and not particularly good either. So, yea, there you go, this is definitely a hot mess of a movie. Not a bad movie, but one that falls way short of its potential thanks to a directionless narrative and jarring tonal shifts. Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are great together, but it feels like the script is constantly holding them back from their true potential. It seems like all I did was pile on this, but this is a perfectly decent movie. Just one that I don't feel was ever good. Take that as you will. Wouldn't recommend it, but I realize I'm sometimes pickier than most people, so don't take my word for it. Watch for yourself and come to your own conclusion
Not my genre, but I did watch it and remained interested in seeing how it would work out. By the end I was reminded again why I hate sci fi and blockbusters.
Not my two favorite actors by a long shot. He's a wooden plank and she's mildly attractive and that's about it. The end had me rolling my eyes and I don't mind a romance story usually.
Just your standard disaster on an a spaceship story. I won't be in a hurry to watch another.
Super Reviewer
Jul 08, 2017
Production-wise this is an excellent movie. Story? Ok. Emotion? Zip. It's as weightless as space.
Super Reviewer
Mar 28, 2017
There are a number interesting ways this could have gone but the script opts for convention (Tyldum's flat direction doesn't help either). More importantly, the movie never finds a convincing way to deal with its romance's creepy overtones.
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