Passengers is directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Jon Spaihts, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt and Michael Sheen.
The trailers were great but they did not do justice to the movie, what we saw was mostly the last part of the story and a little bit of the middle while the movie is so much more than just some intense sequences. Passengers is very much a romance story taking place on a spaceship and that’s a beautiful story.
The first part features Jim Preston (played by Chris Pratt) who wakes up from hibernation 90 years too early, alone on the ship as all the others are still in hibernation, he can only interact with the robot bartender (played by Michael Sheen). In this part, we get to know the character, see his life on the ship and how it slowly turns into a lonely nightmare. I think it helps us understand his choice of waking up Aurora Lane (played by Jennifer Lawrence), and thus making it hard to fully blame him, he was alone, he didn’t know what else to do. He makes mistakes but everyone does too, it takes place in the future but the characters are very much humans. The second part is building the relationship between Jim and Aurora, it’s the romance until the point where Aurora learns the truth of why she was being waken up and starts hating him. The third part would be them working together to try fixing the ship and ultimately being together again.
The only interactions the characters have are between themselves and with the bartender along with Gus (played by Laurence Fishburne) for about 5 or 8 minutes. Andi Garcia is only there for a cameo in the end. Jim and Aurora are on their own so they inevitably fall in love with each other.
Passengers is basically a romance in space, you find all the elements of this genre. The two end up together and die together as when the ship arrives on Homestead II 90 years after the events, they’re already dead, she made the choice to stay with Jim and not going back to hibernation and that’s really beautiful. The science fiction elements are mostly the ship and its technology.
This movie gives us a view of the future that we have already seen before – a future where people travel in hibernation in spaceships to reach other planets and build settlements there, it’s a humanity that expands throughout the galaxy. But the big difference is that the whole story takes place on the Avalon, a spaceship going to Homestead II a planet 120 years away from Earth. It’s an enclosed space, there is just the ship and outside it’s space, infinite space so it sets for interesting things to happen.
The characters are well-written, it’s characters we can understand, you feel their pain, their emotions. Jennifer Lawrence is giving an outstanding performance, she’s a multi-talented actress, there’s no doubt about her talent. When her character learns the truth about why she woke up, she’s delightful, going in full anger mode, we believe in this character! Chris Pratt is excellent as well and the first part with his character is some of his best performances.
8/10 A beautiful love story with an amazing cast!
A Fistful Of Movies 