Passengers - An interstellar love story

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2017)

Passengers is by far my favorite sci-fi drama. It's on par with the previously released movies of the genre such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar, The Martian etc. Only here, we see a nice love story on the interstellar journey. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt performed extremely well in the movie. Their chemistry on screen is what makes the audiences connect to the narration of the story. Brief but effective appearances by Lawrence Fishburne as spaceship captain and Michael Sheen as an android bartender leave their mark on the viewers. But it's the journey itself that's makes us glued to the screen till the end.
Coming to the storytelling, there is not much, I would say, a malfunction in the hibernation pod makes the hero awaken prematurely only to learn that there is still 90 years of journey left in the total 120 year journey to reach the earth-like planet. Then how he gets a companion and live a little for the rest of his and her lives is dramatized very well.
From astronomical sense, the interstellar journey is till not available yet to the human kind. But it's possible in near future that we humans may be able to find a habitable planet in our or neighborhood galaxy to colonize. It's already discovered that there is a planet that is orbiting one of the nearest triple-star system Proxima Centauri (orbiting other two stars Alpha Centauri A and B). What we are not capable of now is the means to travel with near speed of light to the nearest star which itself will take hundreds of years to reach there. As the famous astro-futurist Michio Kaku mentioned in one of his speeches, it's the engineering capability that's preventing us from travelling among stars. It's true that NASA did not yet invent other kinds of fuels such as nuclear/laser/gravitation wave riding/ hypothetical wormholes except for the current chemical propulsion which is used by rockets. It's not even confirmed that the planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, a red giant is with in the goldilocks zone with in the right distance from it's parent star making water and atmosphere possible.
Leaving all these theories aside, the movie simply focuses love story between two humans who are alone on the cosmic journey - hence the title "Passengers". It's a very engaging narration from start to finish which cannot be described in mere words. There is not too much science element that would deviate the viewer and not too much love story either, but just the right amount of both which is what makes the movie a fresh. The other movies in this genre focus either too much on science or action or aliens or philosophical aspect.
Though the movie is termed as a popcorn movie, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching it on the big screen. Though the movie becomes dull at times, there are some exciting sequences too such as floating in space out side the ship, gravity loss, slingshot around a red giant etc. Overall it's a very engaging movie. My rating is 9 out of 10.