On first glance, the trailer, whilst atmospheric and mildly-intriguing, forced a reluctant recollection of Six Days Seven Nights and Mr & Mrs Smith – big blockbusters that paired mega-stars as their leads, but usually a recipe for lacklustre stuff, and contrived sexual chemistry in a desperate bid to bolster said-stars’ already enormous sex appeal. But actually – and especially after a year of spoiler-soaked trailers – The Passengers comes as something of a surprise.
Pratt and Lawrence play Jim and Aurora, who are – or were – in cryo-sleep aboard the Avalon, a leviathan ship venturing on a lifelong-voyage through deep space towards a planet known as Homestead II; where its five-thousand passengers have opted for a new life away from earth – as you do. The trouble is, they’ve both woken up some ninety-years too soon, and while there’s romance in the air (or vacuum), not everything is as it seems.
Though the film doesn’t carry the gravitas it deserves and needs (two people isolated in deep space, eternally-equidistant between the only two nearest worlds), it does, and is perhaps the first film to do so in light-years, steer slightly away from the film you thought it might be from the promotional material by offering a couple of unexpected plot twists that make it all the more compelling viewing and, consequently, refreshingly-unspoiled by its own trailer. That said, while the universe serves quite usefully as the plot device to isolate the pair and craft the story, the film abruptly jumps into generic sci-fi action territory in the third act, perhaps wasting time that would have been much better spent further-exploring the increasingly-turbulent chemistry between its two characters.
For the most part, The Passengers knows how to have fun, mainly during the first act that mirrors that of I Am Legend, and, like Smith, sees Pratt brilliantly portray a worryingly-isolated man at – and at times quite literally – his tether’s end. Lawrence is equally-convincing in her own right, and the chemistry between the two is complimentary, aided wonderfully by Martin Sheen’s likeable-yet-somewhat-creepy bartender-android, Arthur. The film is also not without some infinitely-beautiful, immersive (in 2D, it must be said) and seemingly-borderless shots of the universe, which also emphasise just how hopeless our passengers’ predicament is.
In a film without much more than two stars (and a gazillion untouchable ones in the background) to keep it adrift, The Passengers is a fun trip away from earth – something much-needed in this strange void between Christmas and the New Year. And at the rate 2016 has been going, perhaps a distant safe haven for earth’s stars wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
