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Passengers (2016)
Director: Morten Tyldum
Writer: Jon Spaihts
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen
Genre: Sci Fi, Adventure, Drama, Romance


A huge automated spacecraft carrying 5000 colonist to a distant planet has a malfunction and as a result one of those 5000 colonist in hibernation is awakened prematurely.

The man (Chris Pratt) finds he's completely alone on the ship with everyone else still in hibernation. Even worse the ship won't reach it's destination for 90 years...and there's no way for him to go back into hibernation.

I really, liked this! I expected the worse, I thought this would be some silly non-stop action movie like the current crop of Star Trek films. Instead I found a more introspective film that explores what it would mean to be alone for one's entire lifetime on a ship with 5000 people all in hibernation.

More so, it explores what would someone do when they fall in love with a complete stranger (Jennifer Lawrence) and become fixated on her after reading her journals. Bringing the lonely man to a decision, does he awaken the woman so that he wouldn't be alone anymore? But In doing so he's condemning her to spend her days on a empty space craft, alone with him.



I must say both Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence were very good here. Yeah I know, JL has done a bunch of those teen movies, but she's a good actress given a good script to work with and Passengers gives her a very intelligent, thought provoking script.

Passengers
is not a techno-babble sci fi, in fact it's hardly sci fi in the classic sense. It focuses on the human longing for connection and explores what some might call 'stalking' when a man goes to the extreme to meet a woman he believes he loves, but has never meet.

In some ways this reminds of a cross between Castaway and Titanic in it's exploration of the human soul. Though the film is different enough to stand on it's own feet.



One intelligent twist is, there's someone for the man to talk to, an android bartender played by Michael Sheen. This plot device allows the man to talk about how it feels to be so alone and to want something so bad, (the woman in hibernation) that he considers doing what he knows is wrong. We can see his frustration and obsession growing as he interacts with the amicable, but mostly unaware android bartender. We feel he's wrong, but we can understand it too.

The ship looks cool both the exterior and more importantly the interior. It's vast, and impressive, the CG looked good as the ship looked real and not all CG. I don't want to give away the plot but I will say this is one of the best sci fis I've seen in years, and that includes Interstellar.