“Passengers” stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt as two passengers on a ship who wake up from hibernation 90 years before their projected destination on a different planet. It was directed by Morten Tyldum, written by Jon Spaihts and released on Dec. 21, 2016. Photo Fair Use of Passengersmovie.com.
By VALERIA GARCIA-POZO – News Editor
A film with a sci-fi premise takes an intimate twist when it focuses on the experiences of two people who find each other in the middle of a malfunction on their spaceship.
“Passengers”, released on Dec. 21, revolves around 5,000 people embarking on a 120-year-long journey to the planet Homestead II, their bodies preserved in hibernation pods on the Avalon spaceship. 30 years in, a technical malfunction wakes mechanical engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) too early.
After a year with an android named Arthur (Michael Sheen) Jim decides to wake Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), a writer from New York whose personal files and sleeping face Jim falls in love with.
Thus begins a special-effects filled romance that culminates in the awakening of a spaceship crew member and an action subplot that ultimately gives way to the problematic romance the two main characters engage in.
Aurora’s (spoiler alert!) eventual discovery that Jim purposefully woke her up, thus dooming her to a life on a spaceship isolated from all her loved ones instead of starting over on a new planet, rightfully angers her, and their eventual reunion as lovers is disturbing.
The shining lights of the film are the characters who are featured the least — Sheen’s Arthur adds a much-needed comic relief, and Laurence Fishburne brings instant charm as crew member Gus Mancuso, a character with a tragically short amount of screen time.
The end lacks closure, as we are left to speculate about the fates of the two main characters and are not provided the luxury of seeing what happens to the remaining passengers once they do arrive on Homestead II.
In the end, “Passengers” sacrifices a cool premise for a “love story” that doesn’t deliver. The special effects and secondary characters may make the film worth a watch, but viewers should prepare to be disappointed by the lack of finalization.
