Passengers

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)

Passengers is a nicely done “exciting sci-fi romance” for which the most important thing is that the color of the costumes matches the eyes of the central duo. The set designs and visuals were inspired by everything from 2001 (the ship’s interiors) to Gravity (flying outside of the ship), while adding a nice idea with a zero-gravity pool. It’s a pleasant movie for the target audience of The Hunger Games. However, only about 30% of the hugely promising premise was actually used. I’d like to see this made by Inárritu or a young Ridley… (01/10/2017)

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. (03/04/2017)

A hi-tech technological treat in the thrall of routine, passionless melodrama, in which the filmmakers figured that if they couldn't pull off the philosophy or the careful mating call, a bit of spectacular fire at the end would save them. The opening twenty minutes are from another world and the finale from a well-known universe where hysterical laughter can be heard. (10/02/2017)

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. (03/19/2020)