It’s safe to say Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are two of the hottest stars in Hollywood right now, so it makes sense that a major studio would see the logic in putting them in a blockbuster film together. Add in a futuristic setting in space and a large production budget and you make the project a somewhat ambitious gamble. PASSENGERS has actually been in development for a decade, originally part of the 2007 black list, and at one point being worked on a Keanu Reeves movie. So is the end result worth the wait, or just a glossy bit of sappy sci-fi?

In the future, the Starship Avalon is 30 years into its 120-year voyage to “Homestead II”, a distant planet intended to be colonized with the over 5000 passengers in hibernation on board. An accident results in Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) to wake up prematurely, 90 years before he was supposed to, and he discovers there’s no way to put himself back to sleep. He spends over a year all alone on the giant ship, his only friend being a robot bartender named Arthur (Michael Sheen), and eventually begins to contemplate suicide. Then he sees Aurora Dunn (Jennifer Lawrence) asleep in her pod, and becomes fascinated with her, studying her files and imagining what it be like to share his journey with her. Eventually his loneliness gets the better of him, and Jim decides to wake her up, pretending she had the same problem he did. After spending several months together, the two eventually fall in love, and begin to accept their existence together, 90 years from their destination… that’s a long time to keep a secret though.

The basic concept of PASSENGERS has been compared to TITANIC only in space, and I can see why those comparisons are made, but the end result isn’t as sincere or respectful in its execution. While we feel sympathetic for the Jim Preston character, his act is ultimately very selfish and wrong and it’s hard to find any sort of redemption for him once its done. It’s a testament to Chris Pratt’s likability as an actor that we can cheer him on at all, but much of that can be attributed to the undeniable chemistry between him and Jennifer Lawrence in their romantic scenes. Once their two characters fall in love, we feel that love and understand it, but never forgetting that action that led us there. The biggest problem with PASSENGERS comes when the script starts to progress past the love story, as that’s where the narrative loses its appeal and cohesion. There’s a subplot involving the ship starting to malfunction which becomes a distraction in the third act that feels like a cheap resolve to the bigger emotional conflict.

Director Morten Tyldum keeps the proceedings engaging and slick, and the movie itself looks like a billion dollars… seriously, this is one of the most expensive-looking films I’ve ever seen. But for all the gloss and sleek presentation, it just feels somewhat hollow, and particularly disappointing with its almost non-ending. The final moments are so sudden and oddly presented that one can’t help but wonder if there were multiple endings filmed that just didn’t work, so they decided to just wrap it up in knee-jerk fashion. There’s also a sense of studio-dictated story changes, particularly in how the two leads end up as the third act progresses. PASSENGERS has shades of a better movie within its nearly two-hour running time, but the end result is sadly disappointing and odd. This seems to be a frequent danger when Hollywood pairs two hot names like this (anyone remember THE TOURIST?), so maybe this attempt will prove the formula isn’t always worth the big bucks that go behind it.

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