A romance movie that takes place in space? Surely nothing can go wrong with an idea like that. Passengers could’ve ended up being a modern classic in the Sci-Fi genre but failed to succeed expectations.
The plot follows the ship, The Avalon, is a 120-year destination to a new colony, Homestead II. After 30 years of the 120, two passengers, Jim (Chris Pratt) and Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) accidentally awaken up from cryo-sleep 90 years too soon.
The premise sounded pretty interesting having something like this take place in space. But the trailer wasn’t anything to get excited about as it sets up a totally different story in what they showed us without spoiling. As it stands, though, it was disappointing even though there wasn’t any hype going into this.
Maybe the biggest gripe was the script by Jon Spaihts (Doctor Strange, Prometheus). It could’ve been stronger even more interesting. Essentially, the romance between them wasn’t really anything to care about and the dilemma about the ship maintenance didn’t show much peril in caring. There wasn’t too much charisma between them as I was hoping for just because of how talented these two are. And the decisions that these characters make doesn’t make any sense when realizing it.
Pratt carried the entire movie on his shoulders. Lawrence on the other hand just doesn’t show enough emotions sometimes. Couldn’t tell if she really cared about being on set just like in X-Men: Apocalypse. There were some positives, though.
The visual effects were actually amazing and I love the design of the ship itself. Thomas Newman’s score was really good even feeling almost like a similar sound to Wall-E (which he alway composed). Michael Sheen as the android bartender as amusing almost being kind of reminiscent to the one in The Shining. And it’s well-directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game). Tyldum didn’t have a full idea on how to contribute this relationship and these situations well enough. It’s just that this is really nothing new we haven’t seen before.
Nothing was all that surprising and somewhere in this, it’s a great story beyond what was the final product. The first act is the strongest than it’s later two. It’s one part The Martian and one part Titanic. But less credible than both of them. But some good things about it, this doesn’t really do anything to prove how good it could’ve been better than average. It’s not as bad as everyone said it was, but at first hand, there’s no need to really rush out to see this.
Passengers tried to provide some good chemistry between its leads, but overall this is just a bland sci-fi romance.
Grade: C
DC's Take 