Sony Pictures Entertainment(NEW YORK) — An intense sci-fi romance directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence? Sign me up!
That’s how I felt when I first heard about Passengers. The initial, stunning teaser-trailer presented a potentially gorgeous, thrilling deep-space yarn, and I was hooked. It’s hard not to like Pratt and Lawrence — they’re two of Hollywood’s most endearing stars, and they have great comedic chemistry on the talk-show circuit, the kind you hope translates to the big screen.
It does — but not enough to turn Passengers into the intense sci-fi thriller I was hoping for.
Pratt plays Jim Preston, one of 5,000 passengers on the deep-space cruise vessel Avalon, which is on a 120-year journey to Homestead II, a colony offering the citizens of the overpopulated center of the universe — a little planet we call Earth — an opportunity to start over again.
Like the other passengers, Jim’s been in hibernation for 30 years when the Avalon, on auto-pilot, flies through a meteor field. It damages the ship just enough to effect just one of the hibernation pods: Jim’s. He’s awakened and soon realizes he’s the only passenger who has been — and some 90 years too early, with no way to go back into hibernation.
Keeping him from going completely mad is the Avalon’s android bartender, Arthur (Michael Sheen), a lovely bloke who never leaves his station and offers Jim the same generic advice most bartenders would. Arthur’s so harmless, you start to suspect there’s a little bit of HAL 9000 lurking within — which may very well be one of Tyldum’s best tricks.
After Jim spends a year alone, Aurora Lane’s pod also malfunctions, but it has nothing to do with the ship getting hit by a meteor — it’s more of an important plot point that could’ve been handled better.
No surprise — at least not if you’ve seen the movie’s marketing, or just based on their circumstances — Jim and Aurora fall in love. And while they do, the Avalon slowly falls apart.
Passengers’ best asset is its jaw-dropping set design. We’re talking pure eye-candy. Its biggest weakness is director Tyldum’s inability to build enough tension and explore the various themes he presents enough to deliver a proper emotional and intellectual payoff.
Without spoiling it, Passengers really is more of a morality tale than a romance, but Tyldum and company focus too much on the romance and not enough on an egregious act that in no way is part of how this movie’s being sold to the public. Furthermore, although the Avalon is traveling in deep space, the movie does a poor job of evoking the feeling of loneliness and danger that should bring.
Even so, Pratt, Lawrence and the superficial aspects of the story, along with the gorgeous aesthetic, are compelling enough to make Passengers at the very least interesting, and not a waste of your time.
Three out of five stars.
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