Passengers is a modern disaster movie set in a fascinating future where humans have begun to successfully migrate to other Earth-like planets. The film follows the story of the spaceship Avalon and its treacherous journey to Homestead II, a corporate owned planet.
*Spoilers ahead*
Going into this film from seeing the trailers, I assumed Passengers would mainly revolve around two central characters played by Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. They are doomed to surviving on a spaceship alone, with only each other as company. However, the first third of the movie is almost a new-fashioned Cast Away film as it follows Jim Preston (Pratt) being stranded alone on the Avalon after waking up ninety years too early from his stasis pod. Surprisingly, this I thought was a strong start. Cast Away is one of my favourite films of all time and I could have happily enjoyed a more modern take on the lone survivor story. Instead, we have a film in which the entire plot rests on a single selfish act driven by the loneliness of one man.
After realising he’s alone, Jim explores the ship and meets Arthur, an animatronic bartender played by Michael Sheen (Masters of Sex, Underworld). His lack of emotion and robotic logic help shed some light into what Jim is going through. However, some scenes with Pratt and Sheen seem to linger and have little or no purpose rather than to have some actual dialouge during this first third. There are some scenes whilst Jim is alone that show off some remarkable science fiction moments, the initial space walk is something everyone would try in that scenario and the general design of the spaceship is genuinely out of this world.
Midway through the film, we’re introduced to Jennifer Lawrence’s character, Aurora Lane when Jim wakes her from her pod. After noticing her, he becomes obsessed, and even stalker-ish, and reads through her personal information. This ‘romance’ in the film is off-putting since it is essentially selfish as Pratt’s character put himself first.
There are moments in Passengers that peaked my interest as a science nerd, however the way that Jim survived through the last act of the film is unbelievable and truly ruined the film for me. Overall, this film is visually stunning with immense sci-fi moments, but has some gaping plot issues, a creepy perv of a main character and some downright nonsensical plot devices.
