Passengers: A movie with great special effects, but no story

Rating: 3/10 (31 December 2018)

When I saw "Passengers" for a lark, two things occurred to me. The special effects inside and outside of the spaceship look amazing, such as the interiors of the shape-ship, the internal machinery, the robots equipped with artificial intelligence, and the breathtaking pictures of space. The film also has two good-looking and likeable actors: Chris Pratt as Jim Prentice and Jennifer Lawrence as Aurora. It even has Laurence Fishburne to bring some gravitas and show up just in time to explain what is wrong with the spaceship.
As the film developed, however, I kept asking myself, "Where is the story?" $150 million was spent to create a whole new world and pay the salaries of some highly talented actors. Yet more than an hour into the movie, I developed this sinking feeling that there was not going to be any story beyond the dull plot formula used in rom-com movies. The formula (for those unfamiliar with romantic comedies) is boy meets girl, boy develops a hot and heavy romance with girl, boy almost loses girl over a secret, and boy gets back with girl by doing something heroic. That's basically the plot of this movie dressed up with some colourful special effects.
The frustrating thing about "Passengers" is that film director Morten Tyldum and screenwriter Jon Spaihts did not try to make a film that could been superior to a run-of-the-mill rom com formula. They had the resources to make a great film: $100+ million. They also had great actors: Academy-awarding winner Jennifer Lawrence, Laurence Fishburne (who delivered a brilliant performance in Boyz n' the Hood), and Chris Pratt. Yet this winning combination did not produce a winning movie, because no effort was made the develop a good screenplay to make the most of these actors' talents and the great special effects.