Review of Passengers (2016) by Patrick L — 16 Mar 2017

"Passengers is a sci-fi romance that's both undeniably pretty and undeniably dumb".

Movie Review: Passengers.

Date Viewed: January 2 2017.

Directed By Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game).

Written By Jon Spaihts.

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne and Andy Garcia.

"Passengers" is a sci-fi romance that's both undeniably pretty and undeniably dumb. The movie is still marketed as a romantic getaway with two of the hottest stars on the planet right now but the screenplay for "Passengers" has a dark secret involving the male lead which may shock the people who are anxious to see it. If you don't want to know about it, please stop reading the review and see the movie for your own curiosity.

This is your last chance, I'm warning you! Okay, let's begin. "Passengers" is set in space in the future and it centers around a starship named the Avalon which is transporting 5,000 colonists to a new planet called Homestead II and a young male passenger on the space cruiser mysteriously wakes up. Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) is the only human awake on this ship and his only contact is with an android bartender named Arthur (Michael Sheen) and the bar vastly resembles the famous creepy bartending scene from "The Shining".

Jim finds out that he woke up 90 years too soon and he can't find a captain or anybody else on the vessel. Jim stayed isolated on the space cruiser alone for a year and just when he's thinking about committing suicide, he notices a beautiful young woman who is still in an induced hibernation in her pod. She just happens to be Jennifer Lawrence who plays Aurora Lane, an optimistic writer who has a humorous personality. After viewing her video profile and having a debate to whether or not awake Aurora from her pod, Jim does just that. He immediately fixes up her pod and it causes Aurora to wake up from her induced hibernation. Okay movie, you just released the "Donald Trump/locker room talk video" right there. Jim's creepy fixation with Aurora goes beyond common logic and it completely damages the movie as a whole.

I'll give Sony Pictures credit for cleverly hiding the dark secret from the movie's marketing, trailers and TV spots but this is Depth Con 7 stalker territory. "Passengers" needed a significant rewrite and the filmmakers should've explored more about relationships and space travel. After waking her up from her hibernation pod, Jim immediately gets smitten for Aurora and who wouldn't because after all Jennifer Lawrence is the only attractive person Chris Pratt could find on the Avalon.

Since Jim and Aurora are the only two pretty people on this ship, they fall in love and remain together for a year. When Aurora finds about Jim's creepy-wake-Aurora-up secret from Arthur, she becomes distraught and horrified about this. Does Jim know anything about treating and respecting women's privacy? Despite Aurora blaming Jim for ruining her life, the two lovebirds must work together and save the Avalon from total collapse in the movie's third act.

"Passengers" was directed by Morten Tyldum who made the skillful WWII drama "The Imitation Game". Tyldum has two fine-looking young actors at the vessel and there's certainly no doubt that Pratt and Lawrence make a great pairing but the screenplay by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus and Doctor Strange) holds disastrous flaws and the relationship between Jim and Aurora just doesn't stick at all. It maybe the most creepy intergalactic pairing since Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala hit it off in "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones".

By the way, the movie also stars Laurence Fishburne as a Chief Deck Officer but he only gets about 5 or 6 minutes of screen time and Andy Garcia as.... well it's difficult to know because he doesn't speak at all in this movie and he only appears for about 10 seconds during the end. The one thing I like to know about "Passengers" is, what movies do they have on this ship? Jim and Aurora watch a few of them during their alone time together but we never see what movies they were watching. I hoped they watched "Jupiter Ascending" because the filmmakers should've done their sci-fi movie homework.

"Passengers" is something from out of this world alright, it's a gigantic piece of space coal you should pass by and skip this holiday season.