Review of Passengers (2016) by Skulb — 16 Jun 2017

Passengers is a frustrating movie. It looks absolutely amazing and sounds even better. It also sets up one of the most interesting moral dilemmas of any movie I have seen in the last few years. And then it cops out and chooses an ending that belongs in a bad romantic comedy. Anyway, Jim (Chris Pratt) is on a colony ship underway to another world. An accident occurs that wakes him up 90 years too early. Everyone else on the ship remains asleep however, and Jim is faced with the prospect of living his entire life alone on the ship, dying of old age long before reaching his destination. He contemplates suicide and engages in whatever hedonism is available to him on the sleeping ship. But in the end of course he secretly wakes up Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) instead, thereby condemning her to the same fate as him. Still, some rompy pompy ensues and life on the ship seems now bearable. The beans get spilled by a robot bartender though, and Aurora understandably shuns and even hates Jim for what he has done.

Then the ship experiences system failures caused by the same accident that woke Jim up and together they eventually fix the damaged ship, saving all the colonists in the process. And then they apparently live happily ever after on what basically is a lifelong sex-cruise.

And this is all so wrong. First of all, Aurora was not just mad at Jim for waking her up, she thought it was equivalent to murder. And she clearly has a point. So the obvious conclusion would have been to find out what would happen if Jim had been killed while fixing the ship, which believe you me he came close to doing about ten times in two minutes. What would she do in the same hopeless situation as Jim had been in? Suicide or a lifetime of loneliness and complete isolation? Or would she do exactly what he had done and wake someone up so she wouldn't have to be alone?

Whatever, let's just avoid this super-interesting premise completely in favor of some trite romantic dribble. I can't remember the last time the ending to a movie disappointed me more after such a promising buildup. This is a romantic comedy that is not funny, masquerading as a sci-fi movie. As a severely unromantic sci-fi fan, this is pretty difficult for me to swallow.

I have to rate the movie highly because of the amazing visuals and the compelling premise it develops. But I also have to pan it for abandoning this premise almost completely. Go watch it as soon as possible, but prepare to be both frustrated and annoyed.