A Tree grows in Avalon

Rating: 10/10 (15 August 2017)

The Homestead company makes money colonizing planets. On board the fusion powered, ion drive ship, Avalon are 5,000 passengers and 288 crew, all in hibernation. When an asteroid hits the ship in the first scene, it damages the ship, but it fails to self repair itself. Mechanic/Engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) and uptown girl write Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) are awaken 90 years too early and eventually discover (plot spoiler?) the ship is destined for life support failure unless it can be repaired.
While the film is billed as a love story, I found it equally compelling as science fiction. I think they could have written better dialogue for Jim, or maybe had someone else in that role less good looking in order to make their differences more acute...like Woody Harrelson. But, they wanted the film to appeal to women to so they cleverly added a love story in order to get women to watch boring science fiction...or did they add science fiction to a love story in order to get guys to watch it? Either way, the film was enjoyable, although may have been about a dozen minutes too long. I liked the special effects, especially the zero gravity swimming pool scene. Really cool.
Some geek stuff: In the film they approach the red giant star Arcturus (didn't look too red). It is 36.7 light years away, about the time they have been traveling in 30-40 tears. However, according to their dialogue, they are traveling at half the speed of light which means it would take them 73 years to get there. Just saying.
Guide: No swearing or nudity. Implied sex.