Passengers

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... (04/23/2018)

I was expecting a clever point during the ending, an unexpected revelation (for example that someone also woke Chris Pratt up)... Well, unfortunately, this is not a film for lovers of such things, because the finale is full of action, highly digital and very interesting. But I liked everything before that, and I kept asking, “What is he going to do now? What will she do when she finds out that he...?" and so on. I was extremely entertained by the robotic Michael Sheen and the romantic storyline of the main (only) protagonists, and I enjoyed the mystery which... which then screwed up the aforementioned ending. It’s too bad, but a lost two hours it was not. (12/28/2018)

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% (02/27/2017)

Two acting superstars fly through space, have adventures and find their way to each other despite a repulsive lie. And that's it. Passengers gives a lot of space to Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, and both use it to no end, but unfortunately they rely more for charisma than interesting characters. The chemistry between the characters and the love line is the most interesting thing about their story, but the problem is that it takes up about a third of the film and without it Passengers runs out of breath. And the finale itself is downright bad. Pratt and Lawrence, however, try to push it forward at all times. What's next? Nice production design, good visual effects and some pretty thrilling scenes. So all in all, a pretty solid film, but I would have expected more from two of the most popular acting faces of our time. (05/15/2017)

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. (01/08/2017)