Passengers: A Sci-Fi with No Direction
Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt have become two of the biggest names in cinema. Both of them are well known for being in the huge blockbusters of each year. With that in mind, putting them together for a movie should be a slam dunk right? Well, shockingly the Morten Tyldum directed “Passengers” is anything but a slam dunk. The film is actually a Sci-Fi with no direction.
The film itself follows a passenger (Chris Pratt) on a ship that accidentally wakes up when he shouldn’t have during a trip that is supposed to last ninety years. Due to the fact that there is an obvious problem, he must figure out a way to fix the ship before it’s too late.
The movie which was set as a Sci-Fi, actually turned out to be something different. Out of its hour and fifty six minute running time, an hour and forty of it was a love story while the final fifteen minutes was an actual conflict. There were times where it felt like it wasn’t even a movie. This was not a good thing.
Filmmakers cannot make a movie where there is so much nonsense going on in the plot that no one will care enough about the meaningless conflict at the end of it. This seemed to be a result of a lack of development in the characters as well as the story. Due to the fact that there was no use for the second act of this film, it was hard to take the final act seriously.
The film was one of the those “so bad it’s funny movies” where it was meant to be a serious Science Fiction flick but turned out to be quite the opposite. There was a creepy arc that was added to Chris Pratt’s character that was kind of unforgivable. Although there was a portion of the movie where Pratt was thinking over this creepy decision, it still made him unlikable.
For two highly talented actors, Lawerence and Pratt really had no chemistry. Both of them looked like they were just doing this for the pay check which is kind of disheartening. This again made it hard to root for their well being by the end of the film. Obviously this was not the right genre to put both of these actors in considering how poorly both parts were played.
My huge issue with the film was how poorly integrated Laurence Fishburne’s character was. First of all, this is a well respected Science Fiction veteran. The fact that he was in the movie for six minutes and have no meaning to the film is disrespectful. Sometimes characters that are in a movie for six minutes can have a huge impact like Michelle Williams in “Manchester by the Sea.” However, Fishburne really was the worst use of an actor that I’ve ever seen in a film.
The only aspects of the film that were sort of enjoyable were, the comedic parts that weren’t supposed to be comedic, as well as the scenes with Pratt and the bartender played by Michael Sheen. At least the dialogue was somewhat well written between those two. The directing wasn’t that bad either, considering it was Morten Tyldum who did “The Imitation Game.” The script was pretty awkward and nonsensical at many points throughout though.
All in all, this is probably not the movie you should be seeing considering it is Oscar season. There are plenty of other movies that will be worth your expenses and this is not one of them. Even the biggest Sci-Fi fans will have a tough time appreciating this train wreck.
