Passengers (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Morten Tyldum (Headhunters, The Imitation Game)
	Actors: Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games 1-3, X-men: First Class), Chris Pratt (Jurassic World, Guardians of the Galaxy 1-2), Michael Sheen
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, SF, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 24.07.2017, in-flight entertainment 10" screen.
Synopsis: Among the thousands of passengers hibernating in a spaceship on a 120-year journey, Jim (Pratt) is the only one to wake up far too early. Stuck in that position, he will go through various mental phases until he falls in love with Aurora (Lawrence), still asleep.
Review: Nowadays Science Fiction is so mainstream and Special Effects so common in Cinema that they can be used as (expensive) backdrop for a relatively simple Romance story like the one in Passengers (this is not The Matrix or Star Wars in which they are central). As I mentioned about Oblivion or The Island among others, the pitch of this movie could come from The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits TV-series but pumped-up to be a big Hollywood modern blockbuster. Not that I complain, because it allows watching a futuristic Universe in a different context than a War or Action story. The story in Passengers progresses on a pleasant slow pace and is relying heavily on the comic performance of Pratt in a first time and on the charm of Lawrence later. In addition to two good actors, it was thus important to have a good-looking and well-though spaceship for them to evolve in as it is almost a character in itself. Drama unavoidably punctuates the second act before the heroic actions and "happy" ending of the third. Quite a predictable structure but the movie doesn't try to hide it, so the audience can take pleasure in anticipating the unavoidable. The slow pace again helps with that, and leaves room for dialogs and reflections about life and where we are going, and a 120-year journey to a new life on a new planet is not a bad place for such reflections.
Rating: 6 /10