Passengers - excellent start but final act spoils it

Rating: 6/10 (4 January 2017)

Jim is a technical engineer aboard the spaceship Avalon, which is on its way to colony planet Homestead II. A journey that will take roughly 120 years. About 30 years in, Jim wakes up from his hibernation, due to a technical failure. With 90 years to go, and no way to get back into hibernation, Jim is condemned to spend the remainder of his life alone, traveling, but never arriving. Depressed Jim discovers a fellow passenger, the beautiful Aurora, who is an inspired writer and journalist. Jim falls in love and decides to wake her up. From here on, many more things go wrong with the ship and Jim and Aurora must find a way to rescue themselves and the 5,000 other passengers aboard the Avalon, while juggling their own unfortunate fate.
Going into this movie, I was somewhat on the fence, because I had high hopes for it, but the reviews were pretty terrible. Having seen the movie, I can understand why the reviews are so bad, but I am glad to report the movie isn't as bad as the experts make us believe. There is just one very big issue that's hard to overcome. But I will get to that in a minute.
First the good stuff. The movie starts out really well. It contains critique on the over-commercializing that's been taking over nearly everything (in the movie even space travel). Ironic, really, coming from a big budget Hollywood flick, but interesting nonetheless. Jim's tough decision whether to wake up Aurora, condemning her to the same fate as his, or leaving her in hibernation and facing loneliness for the rest of his days was also well done. Pratt does well to show the emotional depth of the character (much to my surprise, because apart from being funny, Pratt's acting had never been all that impressive). He can't compete with Lawrence, though. She dominates every scene she's in. Sheen plays the android Arthur very well, too. Finally, as you would expect from a movie with such a large budget, the visuals are absolutely stunning.
So far, so good, I thought, but towards the end, the movie makers unfortunately decided that fast pacing was more important than emotional investment. The last third of the movie felt very rushed, and I just wasn't as invested when the finale came along. The decisions of the characters made little sense because they weren't foreshadowed well enough, and the parts that should have made me go wild actually didn't feel all that exciting anymore. This is sad, since they had done so well to take their time in the first bit of the movie, and then somehow forgot how important that was later on. Basically, they took a good idea, started out well, and then messed it up by going all Hollywood in the end. Oops.
Should you watch it? If you like Hollywood-boom-boom turbo flicks, then no. The first bit is quite slow and character-driven. If you like Sci-Fi and don't mind slower movies, then yes, but do keep in mind the ending will not be as good as you want it to be. Just enjoy the first and second act, and of course the visuals. And Jennifer Lawrence is good. Very good.
Verdict: 6.0 - Could have been great, but a rushed Hollywood ending spoils the experience.