Review of Passengers (2016) by Metempsychosis — 07 Jan 2017

Stockholm Syndrome! IN SPAAACE!

I wanted to love this movie. I loved the visuals, I loved the 'technology' in the Avalon with the overused holograms. I would even have bought the ending if Aurora had given her 'friend' the finger and went back to sleep. I bought every single piece of information in the setting that says we, in the future, can:

- Create a starship capable of navigating at 50% the speed of light between stars, including a shield system;.

- Create artificial intelligence capable of diagnosing organic malfunctions and effectively treat them;.

- Create artificial intelligence capable of sustaining a conversation and serving drinks;.

- Put 5250 people in suspended animation for decades;.

- Create the fusion reactor that powers the Avalon, completely unsupervised, supposedly reliably for 120 years;.

What I could not buy is this idea that, in this scenario, we couldn't create a computer system capable of WAKING THE GODDAMNED CREW OF THE STARSHIP when things went wrong so that they could fix the actual problem before it became catastrophic, especially while the ship had some self-repairing capabilities. Especially when the ship is stocked with spare parts for repairs. Speaking of spares, why is it that it had only one autodoc? Convenient, wasn't it? That a starship 120 years away from home has only one of those even though it had a crew compliment of 250 and 5000 passengers.

When I first heard of the movie, the trailer had me think that the ship had woken up Pratt and Lawrence intentionally and that sounded interesting. That they were alone and that there wasn't anyone with actual understanding of how the ship works. Specially considering that Pratt's character is a MECHANICAL ENGINEER. That would've made the whole thing somewhat intelligent. What we got was dumb random chance. Also, someone explain to me why the hell could the autodoc bring Pratt back from the dead but couldn't save Fishburne? That is the end of the problems with the sci-fi part of the film. Even considering how the radiation from the fusion reactor would've sent Aurora's DNA to kingdom come...

Now, there is the problem with the romance part of the film. This could've been a suspense thriller with Aurora trying to keep alive in a metal sarcophagus, dodging an insane man. Or perhaps, a simple sci-fi, space survival movie, even with a stupid brainless romance. Anything without this slow, uninspired 'romance'. At worse, they could have stopped Pratt's character from waking her, clearly showing his intention and despair, yet seconds from actually doing it, only to have one of these convenient failures wake her despite of him. This would've fixed the whole problem with their 'romance'. And... Aurora?? Really? The Sleeping Beauty? People out of touch with reality shouldn't write romances and dumb people shouldn't write science fiction. When they meet and make a movie, movies like Passengers are created, where they don't have the cheese and smart of actual sci-fi, the kind heartwarming of a decent romance or the grit of the Grimm Brothers.