Mark Robijn

Mark Robijn
Celebrating the Joy of Writing www.markrobyn.com

Friday, December 30, 2016

Review of Passengers with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence
WARNING: SPOILERS

The plot of this movie was excellent, What an interesting idea, a passenger wakes up ninety years too early on a ship traveling to the stars, and can't do anything about it.
The way the movie plays out was great, with Jim feeling totally helpless and without a clue what to do, and eventually falling for Aurora and having the choice of whether to wake her up for selfish reasons or live his life alone.
That being said, I think that there could have been much more emotion shown by Chris Pratt at the beginning. He was too stoic for me, too heroic. I would have shown him going more crazy, and made him struggle much more with the decision to wake her up. Chris Pratt is a wonderful actor, but I feel like he needs to expand his range a little bit.
Jennifer Lawrence's character could have been played with a little more emotion as well.
All in all, the move seemed too calm and contained for the dire situation it represented.
There were some formulaic sequences that were predictable, such as when Jennifer Lawrence can 'almost' reach Chris with her tether, and the scene where she revives him. These could have been given a little more twist to them so they weren't so predictable, but I suspect they were looking at the time element here, and didn't feel like they could get too creative.
The part of Gus played by Lawrence Fishburne could have been tweaked as well, he also seemed too stoic about his impending demise. A suggestion would have been for him to be a villian who takes over the ship and tries to steal Aurora away, Jim and Gus could have had a great fight sequence.
The solution to their problem was too easy as well, I'm sure another concession to time. There should have been some more instructions given to them, for it is odd that Jim knew how to restart a reactor.

All in all, a great, fun movie I would highly recommend, even though it could have been more.
8 out of 10.


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