Passengers (I) (2016)
7/10
Get a life
27 February 2017
Warning: Spoilers
As a sharp and slick work of fantasy fiction this film entertained me. It reminded me of 2001, Silent Running, Mission To Mars and even The Shining, but with its own gravitational spin. It covered 90 years in less than 2 hours and successfully kept me from looking at the clock.

One of the 5000 hibernating passengers (has suspended animation been put into cold storage?) on an interstellar starship is inadvertently woken up on the journey with 90 years left to go to arrival – if you couldn't re-hibernate what would you do? Would you calmly walk about a gargantuan ship populated with a handful of robots drinking and playing with your yo-yo for the rest of your life or try to get someone to talk to? Love the place you're in or Love the one you're with. With this moral dilemma eating his vitals Chris Pratt is suitably chiselled and wooden as usual, however Jennifer Lawrence steals the show with her intensely believable performance as usual. On believability - whether someone could survive being so close to a nuclear reactor as was Pratt, protected only by an oven door is a moot point and a bit of a comedy moment too, but I thought the well thought of Gravity was similarly daft and not so weighty as this either. For the bar room scenes with Arthur The Android a bit of Al Bowlly crooning in the echoey background wouldn't have been amiss, but thankfully science fiction films and mankind have gone far beyond Joan Baez warbling end credits even if the message is similar.

Whether the film is guilty of Sexism or not it's certainly guilty of Corn, and nothing wrong with that at all. Excellent hokum, superb cgi cartoonery, and a central performance well worth watching.
2 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed