Passengers
(2016)
If I had to spend the rest of my life on a super-luxurious starship with the only human company being Jennifer Lawrence, I guess that I can think of worse fates — even if recent interviews rather suggest that she may not be the brightest bulb in the box.
The Starship is the Avalon and it has 5,000 passengers in suspended animation for the 120 year voyage to the colony planet of Homestead II.
In captions reminiscent of the opening to Ridley Scott’s Alien this information is given to us in bites, but just when I was settling back to enjoy I realised that the guy waking early was Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), indicating that we were in for a less-than-serious science-fiction outing.
Well, what harm? I enjoyed my serious S-F offering last month with Arrival and don’t expect to see it bettered any time soon.
But at that point I didn’t know that I was about to be held underwater and drowned in charm. Preston knows that he’ll be dead long before the ship ever reaches its destination, but there is never a real sense of despair about him. Try though he might, Pratt still comes across as his character from Guardians of the Galaxy.
We skim rather quickly over the iffy ethical question of him waking up a beautiful fellow passenger with whom he has fallen in love. This is Aurora Lane (Lawrence) and he watches over her as she lies unconscious – Sleeping Beauty-like — for months on end. Finally, he decides to wake her in order to share his loneliness. Without telling her, of course.
Needless to say, they fall in love, although just as I never forgot I was watching Chris Pratt the actor I likewise never believed in Aurora as a real character.
The star of Passengers is without doubt the Starship Avalon itself. The designs and images of this astonishing vessel deserve to be reproduced in a huge coffee-table book. It is simply magnificent and is surely the most beautiful space vehicle ever shown in a film.
And amongst its many, many delights it contains what is certainly the ultimate ‘infinity pool’, which also features in the film’s most breathtaking sequence.
Michael Sheen plays an android barman, reminiscent of Floyd in The Shining, with whom Preston shares his thoughts during his first solitary year; and Laurence Fishburne appears as a ship’s captain in one of the most shameless examples of a deux ex machina I can recall in a modern film. He literally turns up to perform one function and that’s it.
The writer should be hanging his head – and that worthy is John Spaihts of Prometheus and Doctor Strange. Not unfamiliar with dodgy plot elements, so.
Passengers is directed by Morten Tyldum who gave us the superb The Imitation Game a couple of years ago.
And what the hell happened to Andy Garcia? Did I blink and miss him? I hope he wasn’t shunted aside for an extended cut, although I doubt that there will ever be one – whilst admitting that I would watch if there were another ten minutes purely of the Avalon.
This wonderful and elegant creation alone made seeing the movie worthwhile for me. If only such astonishing work had been in the service of a better story.
February 11, 2017
Here you go Charley, I thought Passengers was the best sci fi movie experience I’ve sat through for many a long time, not sure how the story could be any better?, the story was what it was how can you improve on it?.
Passengers or two giant Squids no contest!
Totally agree fantastic spaceship, in fact for a period I felt like been in his shoes and living out my end days stranded on the ship with just my android barman for company.
February 18, 2017
How could you improve on that story? You’re winding me up, right?
Still, there would be worse ways to end your days than with your own private bartender on tap and Jennifer Lawrence waiting to soothe your weary brow after a hard evening of choosing from the gourmet menu.
February 24, 2017
No wind up at all Cha, yes it had a simple plot a love story about two people waking up alone in space, but it wasn’t a cringe inducing sappy love story, it also delivered on drama, suspense and some really good sci fi action sequences and the acting wasn’t half bad either.
Tell me what you would’ve added to enhance your experience apart from the ship getting invaded by a ferocious alien being?.
February 24, 2017
Well, there may not have been a ferocious alien being; but there was a monster. That would be the creepy guy who lurked for months outside Jen’s suspension pod whilst ogling her; and then woke her up and forgot to tell her he was the one who had given her a death sentence.
Simple love stories seem to have changed since my day. I can’t recall Ryan O’Neil stalking Ali McGraw for an age and then giving her that cancer. I know that according to the blurb for THAT film ‘Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry’ (something contravened by anyone who was ever IN love, mind) but I definately think a ‘Sorry’ would be in order if you woke someone up to share your lonely life, depriving them of the destination they were heading to and changing THEIR whole life. And if I remember correctly, most of the trailers left that little detail out and made it look as if they had both woken accidentally. Might have been a bit freaky for the potential audience, I guess.
And don’t tell me that you got any sense at all from Fishburne’s chaaracter just showimg up to clear up a little plot inconvenience…?
February 24, 2017
Well then lets reword that just a tad Charley well lets just say simple love story with a twist?.