Decent chick flick, frustrating sci-fi

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2016)

Passengers is a decent movie for what it is, a chick flick in space. I really didn't know what to expect going into this movie, I only saw one trailer, but I liked the cast and I liked the concept so I decided to watch. Coming out I was exasperated by the last quarter of the movie. There were so many possible ways of pushing the plot to its conclusion and they just picked one of the worst.
Before I get to that terribleness, I want to point out the things that were enjoyable in the film. The sets were beautiful and well done, with some very nice scenes in space. I absolutely loved the beginning of it. Chris Pratt's character, Jim, having to decide whether or not to wake up Aurora was probably the best part of this entire film. His decision is made in a believable fashion and his reaction to waking her and struggle he faces after is amazing. Jennifer Lawrence's acting is superb here, it really shows when she finds out the truth. The acting overall by both leads was great in the film.
SPOILERS Definitely BELOW.
Now, besides those plot points, its a chick flick. The entire middle section is Jim doing everything he did alone the year prior, except with Aurora. The meaning is good, and is pretty much spelled out for you. I didn't love the way this part played out, but it was decent enough. This is where the problems really begin. The meaning is basically told outright to the viewer by the android bar tender, and repeated again in case you missed it. Once one of the crew members wakes up the bs is kicked into high gear and piles on. First off, the entire plot past Laurence Fishburne waking up, relies completely on a crew member being the person to wake up. One thing I liked a lot about the beginning was that Aurora waking up wasn't by chance, this, however, was complete luck. There are 5,000 passengers and its the guy who could open every door and override every computer that wakes up. ARE YOU KIDDING? but lets ignore that, once he's gone, how does Jim know what to do? I get he's a mechanic, which is also pretty convenient, but there is no way he should know how to do half of this stuff, I feel like this would require some kind of very specific knowledge of large spacecrafts. But let's get beyond that too. This entire end bit is ridiculous and unbelievable. Once he survived the exhaust of the nuclear core thing, and who knows how much radiation, it became clear the filmmakers stopped caring about believability, and him surviving to the end became plainly obvious so there was no reason to care about him being left in space, or her tether not reaching to the end, we knew she would get him back, nothing was at stake. This frustrates me beyond belief because there is no reason to make this part so unbelievable. Absolutely no reason at all. If the point of the film was for these two just to spend their lives together at the end, why not go about the climax in any other way? They could have at least tried a little to make this semi-believable.
One last thing that bothered me was the part where the ship was passing by a star and the crew was told they should observe. WHY would that be programmed if the crew weren't supposed to be up by then? I thought this was some kind of clever hint that Jim and Gus woke up for a reason, that maybe what they know could help if the ship faces a problem and it was programmed to wake them if something went wrong. BUT NO. it was all by chance and the star was just a cheap visual.
Again the love story itself isn't bad, the two leads are believable, them coming together so easily at the end isn't, them spending the rest of their lives alone together happily is pretty ridiculous too, but whatever.
To sum it up, Great beginning, OK middle, terrible, terrible end. The end is just all around bad and the fact that the film maker needs to spoon feed the audience the messages throughout the film is bearable at some points, really annoying at others.
Overall the movie is a solid ehh, some really good positives, but not enough.