This film just popped up on Netflix and it caught my eye. To be honest, this one blew right by my attention span when it came out in 2016. The film is Passengers.
Set in the who-knows-how-near-or-distant future, a group of 5,000 colonists are traveling via cryo-sleep to a new world around a distant star to begin new lives. The journey is set to take 120 years. Damage from an asteroid strike causes one of the cryo-beds to malfunction and awaken its occupant, a mechanical engineer named Jim Preston (played by Chris Pratt). Pratt soon realizes there is no way for him to return to sleep, and the ship still has 90 years of travel ahead. His only companionship is an android bartender named Arthur (Michael Sheen). He spends a year this way, intermittently trying to break into the crew areas, amusing himself with digital dance-offs, and just sort of being pathetic. He debates suicide, but chickens out, and then stumbles on a beautiful woman sleeping in her pod named Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence). He debates waking up his “sleeping beauty” (c’mon, they must have chosen the name Aurora for a reason), knowing it will both alleviate his isolation and doom her to certain death aboard the ship.
He chooses his own needs, and selfishly awakens Aurora. In an early version of this film project, Keanu Reeves was attached to star. I’m not sure I could buy this wantonly selfish act from Keanu as easily as I can from Pratt – he just sort of oozes pathetic loneliness, the stinky desperation of a horny male picking his sex toy off the shelf at Dave’s Porno World. He hides the evidence, of course, and chalks it up to just another computer failure – which seem to be increasing in frequency. Of course, they fall in love. I mean, that was the whole point, right? 5,000 people sound asleep, and he creeps his favorite fuck-toy of the bunch and manipulates her into adoring him. Maybe I’m being jaded, but this story isn’t exactly told from a feminist perspective. Aurora isn’t exactly a strong female character. She is a writer and journalist because that’s what her father was. She bought a round-trip ticket, 240 years in space, in order to write about the experience of sleeping through it all. Brilliant.
Just as Jim is about to propose, Aurora discovers the truth, calls him a murderer (rightfully) and runs away. He plants a tree and confesses over a loudspeaker in stupid, futile attempts to win back her love. Really, the character just sucks.
As I said, the power failures continue to worsen – to the point where a third passenger is awoken. Deck Chief Gus Mancuso (Laurence Fishburne) appears long enough to realize shit is going sideways and provide our…hero?… access to crew places on the ship, then dies from hundreds of disorders caused by his malfunctioning pod. His role is barely more than a cameo, just alive long enough to push the plot forward. Then, dead. So that Pratt’s character can become the hero and win back the girl.
Drama and action unfold, blah blah blah, and yes, Chris Pratt saves a bunch of lives and wins back the girl. Fast-forward about 9 decades, and the crew and passengers finally awaken as the intact ship arrives at Homestead. The nameless, voiceless captain of the ship is played by Andy Garcia, and I can’t figure out why. He has no lines, about four seconds of screen time, and is barely recognizable with a full beard and silly costume. Can’t we give Andy even one line? The only evidence of the existence and lives of Jim and Aurora is an absolutely trashed main concourse, full of bushes, a creek and an old cabin, and an audiobook version of Aurora’s last work, her writings about their isolated lives all alone on the ship. If all of her friends and family weren’t already dead, somebody might have cared enough to listen to it.
Written by Jon Spaihts (Dune, Prometheus, Doctor Strange) and directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), this film takes some interesting moral quandaries and sprays them with glossy mediocre talent. It’s no wonder it lingered in development hell as long as it did.
