Passengers

Approaching the latest Jennifer Lawrence – Chris Pratt movie Passengers as a romantic film would be a better idea if you want to enjoy it. Because of the initial responses I had to hear from a few sources, I was a bit skeptical about the film. But when I saw Passengers, it wasn’t that boring at all. Because of the catchy chemistry of the lead pair of the movie, Passengers becomes a passable one time watch which doesn’t have much of a scientific base to its credit.

A gigantic starship Avalon is carrying around 5000 people to this planet called Homestead II. Yeah its an interstellar travel and in the midst of that some issues happens and the malfunction of the ship ends up in the awakening of two of the passengers. They were supposed to be in a hibernation period of nearly 120 years, but apparently they woke up 90 years prior to that. The relationship they establish between themselves and what all things they had to repair in the damaged ship is what Passengers dealing with.

If you watch the movie, you will know that the above summary isn’t entirely true. Well I am going with the trailer of the film and don’t want to spoil any possible excitement.  So this is a theme based on interstellar travel and of course it is a fantasy concept (somewhat closer to Elysium in terms of concept). May be because of the skepticism, I found the romantic angle of the film interesting. Getting to spend time with your loved one in a very luxurious setup for an entire life time is in a way the dream of every couple of the present day. Like that, if you isolate the film from its scientific base, there is a very engaging love story that is happening there in the film. But it is supposed to be this sci fi film and like I have been mentioning throughout this review, there is very less authenticity to the space travelling part. I am not saying the science is utterly wrong (because I have no clue about the whole space travel and related concepts). But in whichever film we have seen that has the concepts of interstellar travel and other space related events, there is at least the base of a hypothesis to make it all look credible. Here it was all luxury rather than a solid base.

Morten Tyldum who last year made the much acclaimed The Imitation Game, this time tries his hand in science fiction and I have to say the scale of the movie looks enormous. All those sets created or made in CG looks quite stunning and the luxury of the whole setup has been visualized very smartly. A lot of criticisms were raised against the ethics of one of the central conflict of the movie, but personally I felt the justification was there in the movie itself. The bonding of the lead pair (the only pair) looks very engaging. But when the film tries to go for behind the science, Passengers becomes easy to predict and looks very less authentic. Each frame is full of gadget coolness. Background score was impressive and the visual effects also look commendable.

Jennifer Lawrence as always delivers a really impressive performance. Aurora has all the emotional shades in the film and the actress pulls it off very neatly. Chris Pratt also underplays his character effectively. The usual funny tone was not there. I would really like to see a proper romantic comedy featuring this pair. Michael Sheen and Laurence Fishburne are the only other actors who have got brief characters in the entire film.

So like I said, I never got bored watching Passengers and the reason for that is the oozing chemistry of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. As a science fiction action adventure film it is a letdown and as a fair enough love story in a futuristic setup, it works fine.

Rating: 2.5/5