You can usually count on big-pedigree sci-fi films like ARRIVAL to contain truly challenging ideas, but how, this late in the game, can we still get a movie like PASSENGERS, one of the most misguided big-budget sci-flicks in recent memory?
Set in an unspecified future, PASSENGERS stars Chris Pratt as Jim Preston, a mechanic onboard the spaceship Avalon. Like the other 5000 passengers, Jim is in suspended animation for the ship’s 120-year journey to the planet Homestead II, where earthlings are colonizing after overpopulation problems back home. Unfortunately, Jim has the misfortune of waking up 90 years too soon when his sleeping pod malfunctions. He sends an email back home to apprise someone of his predicament, but is informed it will take decades for that message to transmit, so like Chuck Heston in THE OMEGA MAN, he settles in to his role as the last man (not) on Earth. After a year of shooting hoops, playing Hologram Dance Dance Revolution, and watching the movie WOODSTOCK over and over alone, Jim decides he could use some female companionship (if you know what I mean!). He becomes fixated on the prettiest pod-dweller on board, a shapely Sleeping Beauty named Aurora, played by Jennifer Lawrence. But he’s conflicted. Waking Aurora would technically steal her future and doom her to die of old age aboard this ship long before she lands on Homestead II, but he’s really lonely. Jim likes Aurora’s eHarmony profile best – she’s from New York, her father had won a Pulitzer and she wants to be a writer! There’s the ominous shot of the ‘Hibernation Pod Owner’s Manual’ with a screwdriver laying on it! She’s booked a first-class ticket on the Avalon, which was quite expensive (we’re told the Avalon’s parent company’s profits were in the quadrillions), but Jim is really lonesome. I expected an angel and a devil appear on either of Jim’s shoulders just like on Pinto in ANIMAL HOUSE to argue his dilemma (“Squeeze her buns! You know she wants it!” vs “If you lay one finger on that poor helpless girl, you’ll despise yourself forever!”). Arthur the robot bartender (Michael Sheen) seems to think it’s okay to wake her up, or at least does little to discourage it and promises to keep it a secret and Jim is really lonesome, so he goes there. He awakens Aurora, and after a couple of minutes of her fretting, they’re shooting hoops, playing Hologram Dance Dance Revolution, and watching WOODSTOCK together. Her first-class status even gets them better food! Eventually they’re naked in bed (his plan worked), but when Arthur spills the beans about how she really woke up, Aurora cries, kicks Jim in his sleep, and insists they get drunk at Arthur’s bar on alternating evenings. Eventually, a crew member (Laurence Fishburn) awakes to answer some questions and there is a climactic crisis requiring Jim to swing into action to save the sleeping passengers.
The level of intelligence in the script of PASSENGERS is shockingly low – the screenplay is so dumb and the science stupid. Why is Homestead II so damn far away? Is this really the closest planet they could find to inhabit? If it takes 55 years to transmit a message, how the hell did scientists research this planet and get info on it? No time is ever spent developing the characters and all that rapey male fantasy stuff is so wrongheaded, I predict some real backlash.
The sets are shiny, the cinematography is slick, the music is appropriate, and most of the important special effects are competent (a scene where they lose gravity while Aurora is swimming works). Morten Tyldum’s direction is workmanlike but screenwriter Jon Spaihts must have taken sleeping pills to write this one-dimensional story.
The two leads do little to stand out in their roles. Pratt leaning on his likeability doesn’t work with a character this clueless. Lawrence looks smashing swimming laps in a mesh bikini and running down hallways wearing designer dresses with her lipstick, hair, and make-up all in place (all that’s missing is that teddy nightie that Farrah wore in SATURN 3), but we all know the Oscar-winner is better than this material. Laurence Fishburn is introduced coughing up blood, so you know he won’t be around long. Andy Garcia’s cameo is so pointless I wonder why they bothered. Michael Sheen has some amusing moments as Arthur the android barkeep, but I wish they had brought Dudley Moore back to life, a la Peter Cushing in ROGUE ONE, for this role. I wasn’t bored with PASSENGERS and was amused by its political incorrectness and lack of self-awareness, but it should not be taken seriously as adult science fiction.
2 of 5 Stars
