The spaceship Avalon flies to explore a distant planet. The flight will last 120 years, and therefore the crew and colonists are in deep hibernation. They must come out of it only a few months before landing. Thirty years into the journey, the Avalon encounters a powerful meteor shower. The protection system fails, the ship’s computer malfunctions, and this activates the hibernation capsule, which houses mechanic Jim (Chris Pratt). The guy ends up being the only awake person on the entire ship, and he can’t go back into hibernation. There is no proper equipment on the Avalon. A year passes before the writer-journalist Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) awakens early and Jim stops going crazy with loneliness.
When Norwegian director Morten Tyldum talks about his second Hollywood picture (the first was the biopic “Imitation Game”), he stresses that he aimed to make a sprawling sci-fi film in which people are more important than futuristic entourage. For him, “Passengers” is first and foremost a love story built around a unique confluence of fantastic circumstances. However, it is also a $120 million blockbuster with two of Hollywood’s leading “fresh” stars. And “Passengers” turned out to be a dual picture, in which its two halves interfere with each other.
Chris Pratt received $12 million for his participation in the film. Jennifer Lawrence’s fee was $20 million. Also, the actress will receive a percentage of the profits if the picture pays off.
How should the film have been lined up if it really was a dramatic love story during a space flight? A guy wakes up, a girl wakes up, they start a relationship… Then a heated argument erupts on some ground and a long confrontation unfolds on the ship – a psychological and physical game of cat and mouse that culminates in an optimistic or tragic finale. Such a plot would have allowed as an X-ray to enlighten the souls of the characters, to remove several psychological layers from them, to trace in detail the development of their relationships … But it would not have been the kind of movie for which the studios shell out hundreds of millions of dollars.
On the contrary, if “Passengers” were a pure blockbuster, the film would quickly turn the characters into a combat team and send them to wrestle the ship from the aliens or do something equally spectacular and combative. There wouldn’t be much psychology in such a movie, but it would please fans of stellar action.
What did Tildum actually do? He combined both approaches. The film begins as a psychological spectacle, but when conflict flares up between the characters, the film doesn’t trace it to its logical conclusion, but devises a common heroic quest for Jim and Aurora that forces them to act as a team and reconcile without too much deliberation. That said, since the quest begins near the end of the production and takes a long time to ramp up, there is little action in the film. Psychologism gives up just at the moment when the interested audience anticipates the war. As they say, neither for themselves nor for the people.
So instead of one or the other potentially successful film, Tildum has made a competent but mediocre spectacle. Nor is the design of the huge spaceship on which the spectacle unfolds particularly impressive. That is, the Avalon looks beautiful, imposing and futuristic, but it has nothing unusual on board, except a pool with a view of the stars. This is logical – the ship is only supposed to serve awake passengers for a few months, and so there are only the essentials for life and comfort on board. But when all the action takes place on one ship, one wants it to have at least something unique, not encountered, say, on board spaceships from “Startrek”.
And what about Hollywood luminaries Pratt and Lawrence? Pratt, as you might expect, is very organic as a decent but not flawless guy who isn’t afraid to fool around and is great with mechanics. Prior to his partner’s appearance in the story, Pratt carries the picture with ease, displaying his stellar charisma. Lawrence, on the other hand, is unconvincing as the New York intellectual. True, it is more important for the film that Lawrence is convincing in the heroic finale. But to the moment when the heroine does not have to flex their muscles and perform a feat, it mentally says: “I do not believe it! Natalie Portman would have been more appropriate here.”
Sadly, Lawrence does not go for even the slightest pretense of refinement. But she looks good in fancy dresses and especially in a risky swimsuit. The picture repeatedly and with relish shows Aurora swimming, so that those who wish can consider Lawrence in all the details. These snippets are more erotic than the hyped love scene of the main characters, as the romantic “spark” between Jim and Aurora is not as bright as one would like.