Passengers

     Passengers is directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) and stars Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games). On a 120-year interstellar journey, a hibernation pod malfunctions resulting in the two people being woken up 90 years too soon.

     This movie had the potential to be great. It spent a lot of time on the Black List, a list of the best screenplays in Hollywood that go unproduced in a given year, including the scripts for Spotlight and Slumdog Millionaire. And the two leads are arguably the biggest actor and actress in 2016, headlining some of the biggest franchises over the past few years. But somehow this film comes up mediocre at best.

     Visually, Passengers is stunning, from the look of the spaceship to an intense water scene involving swimming in zero gravity. The design of the ship was quite unique with an interesting way of moving quickly through space without having to worry about asteroids or the like. And the action scenes were masterfully handled, however few and far between the way.

     The biggest problem I had with the movie was the mixture of themes on display throughout its runtime. At times it was a romantic drama with comedic beats and then it tried to switch into deep science fiction but never really going past a surface level.  I feel that if they had stuck with either/or rather than trying to switch between the two, the movie would have been the better for it.

     While both leads are fantastic in other movies, together in this one it was hard to buy their chemistry. It felt paper thin, as if they were reading from notecards rather than actually falling in love with each other. When the script called for a problem in their relationship to arise, they suddenly forgot everything else they had been through and immediately split apart only to come back together just as suddenly.

     And the script felt far too cheesy and over simplistic. Some of the ideas that could have been explored were left by the wayside in order to show the leads laughing at a bar or kissing in bed. What could have been an interesting and thought provoking piece of sci-fi instead turned into an eye roll inducing series of corny jokes. And without going into spoilers, the third act and resolution of the movie were unbelievably predictable and I had a hard time containing laughter at some of the more “serious” moments, although I found myself laughing at unintentional comedic moments throughout the movie.

     While Passengers delivers on interesting visuals, the themes and characters fall short in delivering anything truly memorable or anything you need to rush out and see.

When should you see it?

Redbox