There’s been quite a lot of criticism towards this movie, but in my opinion such criticism is mostly unwarranted. It’s actually a pretty good film.
It’s a sci-fi movie about a spaceship travelling to a new colony planet called Homestead II. It carries 5000 passengers plus a crew. However as the journey will take 120 years everyone on board is asleep in pods, only due to wake up shortly before they reach the colony. One passenger, Jim Preston (Chris Pratt, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’), gets woken up early – 90 years too early. Unable to get back to sleep Jim faces the reality that he will probably spend the rest of his life with only the company of a robot barman called Arthur (Michael Sheen, ‘The Queen’).
After some time has passed the pod of Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence, ‘The Hunger Games’) opens. Why did their pods open early? Jim and Aurora must face a potential future alone together as well as deal with a ship that begins experiencing technical difficulties.
Some of the abovementioned criticism is down to the realism (or more the lack of). If you are looking to pick holes with why certain things happen then yes, you’ll find some; but as I mentioned in the plot summary IT’S A SCI-FI MOVIE! Who cares if the science doesn’t exactly make sense? It doesn’t have to.
There’s also a question of morality and about how a certain situation is handled. I won’t go into any more detail about the event other than to say I didn’t have a problem with the way the situation and aftermath was dealt with. In fact I’d say it was handled pretty well.
For me the movie’s biggest strength is its concept. It was written by Jon Spaihts, who also wrote ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Dr Strange’, and directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game). Taking everything into account it’s actually quite a simple story, told in a spectacular way. There’s humour, romance, drama and action. It was featured on the infamous black list a few years back and was almost made with Keanu Reeves in the main role. I do like Keanu but I’m not sure I can really picture him in this role after watching Pratt.
The one thing that critics are praising is the actors.
In Pratt and Lawrence you’re talking about two of the biggest movie stars on the planet right now. And it appears they were paid as such raking in a reported $12 million and $20 million respectively. Individually and together they were great. Pratt during the first part of the movie was really funny. J-Law then came in and added some drama. The chemistry between them seemed genuine and matched the fun they seem to be showing on all the chat shows. I’d also like to praise Sheen too who is terrific. K-2SO in ‘Rogue One’ and now Arthur in Passengers – it’s been a good couple of weeks for robots in a supporting role.
I’m not saying it’s one of the best films of the year, but I did like it a lot. By no means does it deserve the sniffy reviews it’s been receiving. Go see it for yourselves and ultimately you can be the judge.
Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/274870-passengers?language=en-US
Movie Critic: AAA
Movie Rating: 7/10
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