Passengers

A textbook sci-fi romance. A-grade actors, decent effects and if at the end the screenplay hadn’t begun freewheeling so unoriginally, the movie could have been excellent. In retrospect I’m disappointed that I had already learned of a fundamental twist (from the time when Keanu Reaves was meant to play Jim) which the trailers sensibly kept secret. P.S: Andy Garcia appears for precisely three seconds. (09/01/2017)

The only film of its kind, a creatively grasped and logically developed romance in the cinephile milieu of the lovers of 2001: A Space Odyssey or Alien. The audience's enthusiasm for the comfort and limitless possibilities of a closed futuristic world is impressively confronted with an emerging moral dilemma, while the precisely rhythmic narrative seamlessly connects the lines of the overarching sci-fi conflict with the internal conflicts and relationships of the awakened characters. Laurence Fishburne's character may be a very violently executed scripted interlude whose sole purpose is to nudge the central pair towards resolving technical glitches, and the ending is too Hollywood, but the overall enthusiasm still far outweighs that, and not just because of the likeable Pratt and the beautiful Jennifer, who would be a turn-on for any guy with even a minimal sex drive, but also thanks to the delightful cinematic references, led by bartender Michael Sheen a.k.a. Lloyd from Kubrick's The Shining, who instantly ranks as one of the most endearing figures in the history of bartending and sci-fi. Anyone who talks about insanely wasted potential must have the most vivid imagination since Tolkien, 85% (28/02/2017)

Sci-fi has a tough time, all too often serving only as an exotic background for other genres. Frequently, you end up watching horror, crime, or action films in a futuristic disguise. Passengers presents a purebred romance set in a giant spaceship to bring it to life. If you approach the film as a drama, an adventure story, or, God forbid, start contemplating the logic of the displayed microcosm of a spaceship with elegant promenades, pools, and luxury attractions, you will not be able to avoid disappointment and condemnation. Passengers is an ideal complement for an evening with your loved one, holding a glass of wine in one hand and embracing your partner with the other. It is a pleasant film that is easy to forgive for its certain naivety and script shortcuts steering the story in the desired direction. I have never given a film in which Jennifer Lawrence was involved more than two stars, and as I look at her filmography, I find significantly more candidates for rubbish than promising pieces among those I have yet to see. I will thus accommodate the poor girl and give it four stars and an overall impression of 75%. As a bonus, the interesting design of the spaceship and its interiors also earn the film points. In terms of what sci-fi is commonly abused for, this is a very positive example... (24/04/2018)

A space romance where there is little space and a lot of romance, which is often quite forced and out of place, but it has to be there. Unfortunately, the plot around the spaceship is very simple and just a sort of binder in the concept of a story about a couple's relationship and life in a rocket. It's not bad, the production design is impressive, full of neon and cutting-edge gadgets, but underneath the polished shell, it's a generic, fairly uninteresting relationship drama. (05/03/2017)

In a way, Passengers could be conceived as a futuristic version of the Titanic, with an Overlook bartender on board, plus the modern equivalent of Sleeping Beauty starring a technician from below deck, a first-class intellectual and a giant ship with 5,000 passengers in fatal peril. The film impresses above all with its appealing visuals and the grounded performances of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. In addition to the visionary notion of planetary habitation, the film invites us to reflect on the question of human behaviour (a drowning man grasping at straws) and the helplessness of omnipotent technology in a state of emergency (where machines fail, good old human hands come to the rescue). I believe that even more could have been extracted from the subject matter, but I was still satisfied with the final product. (19/03/2020)