Interesting premiss becomes a routine sinking ship survival tale

Rating: 4/10 (4 January 2019)

Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt make a handsome couple in this sci-fi version of a desert island romance (think "Blue Lagoon" or "Swept Away" in space), but the film ultimately fizzles on a promising premiss and becomes a routine sinking spaceship story that is no "Titanic." 5000 passengers are aboard a space cruiser on a 120 year trip to a distant plant called Homestead II when Pratt finds himself unexpectedly woken up from his sleep chamber about 90 years too soon. Pratt goes a little crazy all alone on the massive ship, growing a bear, walking around naked, and basically losing his mind (think Tom Hanks in "Castaway"), when he hits on the idea of waking up another passenger. Enter Jennifer Lawrence, who he wakes from her sleep, but doesn't tell her he woke her, instead blaming the faulty ship. Can their romance survive such a huge lie? Pratt's decision to wake her was essentially sentencing her to die with him, so should he ever tell her the truth or should he live with the lie? That kind of story is ripe with possibilities and almost reaches Andrei Tarkovsky "Solaris" levels of smart science fiction, but instead those emotional, ethical, and moral implications are barely addressed and the plot instead quickly shifts into a routine "THE SHIP IS FAILING" storyline where the two have to try to save their slumbering fellow passengers from dying in their sleep. If this was a desert island romance film, the equivalent would be the happy couple spending most of the film fighting pirates and completely ignoring the first half of the film's intriguing set-up. Considering the likable stars, a strong story premiss, and the lavish production values, this film was a real missed opportunity.