10s Movie Review - Passengers

Director: Morten Tyldum
Genre: Drama/ Science Fiction/ Romance/ Fantasy
Runtime: 116 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Garcia

Description: A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.

Review: There are always those film projects, that take a long time to make. “Passengers” has been waiting on the shelves, when it was eventually picked up to be directed by Morten Tyldum.

The film starts with an introduction to the Avalon, a spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people in order to start a new civilization. The people are all in hibernation. As a malfunction, two of the passengers wake up 90 years early.
The first act of the film is the most impressive. It sets an intriguing atmosphere. We meet Jim and Aurora and how they are trying to deal with the fact that they woke up 90 years too early. How they explore the ship. Especially Chris Pratt gets a lot of room to develop his character. And the opening also has amazing special effects. After the first plot twist, it all fades a little bit.
There is supposed to be an emotion spectrum. Themes like loneliness and romance have a lot of potential here. But Jim and especially Aurora are a bit too superficial as characters to make this combination of drama and romance work to the fullest. And although Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are two of the most beloved actors working today, the two don’t have the on screen chemistry we were all hoping for. Pratt’s character gets a bit more substance, because of his solo scenes at the start of the film. But Lawrence’s character misses that. They perform great, very solid, don’t get me wrong. But I expected them to be better together.
On paper, “Passengers” had everything to become a hit. The fantastic actors, the visuals and an interesting story. It all feels a bit mediocre, pretty predictable and without the chemistry we hoped for. A fun popcorn film, certainly not bad, but it could have been so much more.

Rating: 3 / 5