Review – Passengers

I don’t usually do this, but this is going to be a SPOILER review.  To really express how I truly feel about this movie and certain things that happen, I have to spoil some of the twists the movie has, because the film the trailers say we’re going to get, we really don’t.

So, before reading on, SPOILER ALERT!

Now that that’s taken care of, Passengers could have been a good movie.  In fact, it was a good movie for about forty minutes.  It was interesting, decently paced, and the visuals were great, especially in 3-D.  But then the movie takes a weird turn, which was followed by a relatively formulaic story.

So the story takes place on a spaceship called Starship Avalon, a ship traveling 120 years to a distant colony planet known as the “Homestead Colony” and transporting 5,259 people who are all .  During the journey, the ship hits an unexpected asteroid field, causing a power surge and damage to the ship.  This causes Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) to be awoken from his pod 90 years too soon.  Jim, the only one to awake, starts journeying around the ship, discovering everything it has to offer.  However, after a year alone, he starts to get lonely and decides to wake up a passenger he has grown a fondness for, Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence).  He wakes up Aurora, not telling her he did it and having her assume it happened the same way it happened to Jim.  The two eventually fall for each, until Aurora finds out what Jim did, making the ship completely awkward, since he essentially ended her life.  The two then must come together to save the ship from blowing up before it kills them and everyone on the ship.

I basically gave away the entire movie, minus the climax because, hey, you got to leave something for you guys, right?  But the movie starts off as an I Am Legend (2007)/Moon (2009) kind of thing, with Chris Pratt alone on the ship.  I never thought of Pratt as much of an actor.  He’s never really showed “acting ability”, just a whole bunch of charisma that is perfect for the roles he has taken so far.  He actually does some acting in this one, though, and it’s quite pleasant.  Watching Jim wander through the ship, get lonely, and then go through the dilemma of if he should or should not solve his loneliness by waking up Aurora was very fascinating.  I actually think the movie would have been better if that was the whole movie.  Maybe a short film?  Maybe an 80 minute indie?  Either one would have been better.

Here are my problems with the film, and there are quite a few of them.  First of all, the casting annoys the hell out of me and did so from the trailer.  Chris Pratt, even though I said he never showed any acting ability before, is charming as hell and always fun to watch on screen.  And I love Jennifer Lawrence in literally everything she does.  So why do I have a problem with this casting?  Because they’re both too pretty.  I know that shouldn’t be a flaw, but there is absolutely no drama in the movie in terms of their relationship and them falling for each other.  Like, no shit that two attractive people with bedazzling personalities are alone on a ship and they fall for each other.  Real drama would have been if someone like Steve Buscemi or Nick Nolte were casted as Jim.  Can you imagine Buscemi and Nolte in a love story with Jennifer Lawrence?  That’s a flick right there.

My biggest issue in terms of story was Jim’s motivation as a character.  I genuinely liked Jim at the beginning, but then he wakes up Aurora and, to be blunt, it’s super fucked up what he did to her.  He is essentially killing her by waking her up, and he does it for his own good.  It was a selfish move and after that, I didn’t care for him as a character at all.  Aurora is a blandly written character, so it’s not like my sympathy shifted towards her, either.  So for the last hour or so of the movie, I didn’t care what happened to these characters.  Live, die, whatever, didn’t care.

Passengers is an overall waste of a movie.  The 3-D visuals and first forty minutes are good, but then it blows up due to terrible character motivations, a ultra-pretty, unrealistic cast, and no empathy.  This would have been a great indie or a great short, but is instead a glossy Hollywood product.

MY RATING – 1.5/4

Did you see Passengers?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook and YouTube by searching Kevflix.