Two charismatic leads with good chemistry barley keep adrift what is an otherwise disastrous space travel romantic thriller gone haywire in Passengers.
Some say casting is everything. Usually, it’s just smart business to hire the hottest headline name in town to bring that extra something to a film that might have a whole lot of nothing otherwise. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt do just that in Passengers, a trouble in space romantic thriller that although sleek in design, proves to be a lemon of a sci-fi blockbuster.
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Set on a self-sustaining state of the art deep-space travelling ship transporting over 5000 souls in deep hibernation to the colony planet “Homestead II”, Passengers begins with the awakening of engineer civilian Jim (Chris Pratt) some 90 years too early from the calculated arrival time. With only an android bartender name Arthur (Michael Sheen) as company, and the many entertainment facilities on the vessel having grown tiresome, a lonely and cripplingly depressed Jim is soon joined by another early waker, the beautiful and intelligent Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence). A romance soon blooms between the pair, yet a dark secret and a malfunctioning vessel soon makes their intergalactic journey one of life and death.
There are things to like in Passengers. First and foremost are the performances by Pratt and Lawrence, and the easy chemistry that the pair share, Pratt’s goofy big lug shtick and Lawrence’s spunky fun attitude meshing rather well. Problem is the lack of stakes and a troubling moral core in the motivations of their characters that hangs like a dark cloud throughout what, with the right amount of tinkering during the films development, could have resulted in a much better movie.
Director Marten Tyldum (who incredibly scored an Oscar nomination for the overrated The Imitation Game) is unable to spin gold from Jon Spaihts’ troublesome screenplay filled with irksome character motives that never find a resolution, and lacking in stakes so when the shit hits the intergalactic fan, “meh” is the only reaction.
Lawrence and Pratt give their best to add personality to a film that is reminiscent of the space-craft it is set in: a shiny package of some joyous distractions, that runs its course and falls apart very quickly. |