A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.
An attempt to get two of Hollywood's biggest actors together, Passengers is a romantic sci-fi where a colonisation ship is traveling to its destination when a hibernation pod fails and wakes someone up...90 years before it reaches Homestead II. But is this destiny? Is there a greater meaning to this? Or are these questions actually pointless as the film does not explore them at all? I can tell you the last question is correct. Whilst this does boast an impressive cast and director, the script and story lets it down. I shall start off by saying that Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are perfect in this film. They both have charisma, charm and plenty of humour and the chemistry between them is believable. Michael Sheen plays an android bartender and is the comic relief, his British wit was much needed. Laurence Fishburne is also in the film, but I shan't spoil his character...though what I will say is that when he appears, the film turns around and says "I bring you...plot conveniences!". Honestly, the storyline was just filled with so many conveniences that it infuriated me, not to mention the last act of the film that was just ridiculous. Chris Pratt's character is a convenience, the ship malfunctioning is a convenience...I would even say the conveniences have convenience. There could've been so much purpose to this, a far more poignant ending and the critics would've loved this. In fairness though, I did enjoy this somewhat. Morten Tyldum did a great job directing with plenty of wide camera shots and nice still panning shots, it made the Avalon (the colonisation ship) look majestic. This brings me onto production, the design of the Avalon and the computers, holograms...heck even the robots, it all looked fantastic! Some great creativity was used, it's just unfortunate that the film will only be remembered for that. Thomas Newman composing though, euphoric! Possibly one of the best soundtracks for a 2016 film, I loved it. I mean don't get me wrong, this film is enjoyable. The romance is what people want to see and I became invested in them, I believed that they would make a good couple and even with a heart breaking revelation, I still wanted them to be together. The script even dabbled into themes of loneliness and solitude, it just wasn't explored thoroughly enough. Overall, Passengers has two great actors and great production, but the flawed story that's full of plot conveniences makes this rather boring at times. The soundtrack however, I would give full marks!
