It'll put you in a cryosleep

Rating: 4/10 (9 January 2018)

A spacecraft is on a 120 year voyage from Earth to an alternate planet called Homestead 2. The passengers and crew have all being put in a form of cryosleep or an extended period of hibernation for the journey and both crew and passengers are supposed to wake up a few months before they arrive at Homestead 2. However, due to a malfunction with a couple of hibernation chambers a few people on board end up waking up 90 years earlier than they should do...
Passengers has a fairly interesting premise and on paper it should have been a fairly thrilling and suspenseful ride. However, the way it is actually executed falls a long way short of where it needs to be in order for it to work in its entirety...
There were a number of issues that I with this film; the fact that the film is pretty much devoid of suspense, tension or any kind of intensity for around 2/3 of its running time means that for most of the film you'll see Chris Pratt wandering round the ship (how he manages to navigate his way round it with such ease is anyone's guess). Lawrence and Pratt making doe-eyes at each other, they'll go to the bar together - rather creepily the bar and barman reminded me of the bar and barman in The Shining - was this deliberate or was this just me that thought this?
The narrative is also a little weak; we don't learn much about the ship, or much about where everyone is going and their reasons for going. The romance between Lawrence and Pratt is unconvincing (this is even before she learns that he woke her up). I also couldn't get on board (no pun intended) with the idea of the ship actually needing a crew at all... I mean why were they there? The passengers that were awoken early seemed to be able to function without them and the ship was filled with high-tech computers and holograms that seemed to be able to assist the passengers anyway. For my recollection I don't recall the crew actually doing anything at the end to make themselves feel needed (although I was starting to switch off toward the end truth be told).
Still it isn't all bad, the film has some exciting moments in its final third, the special effects are pretty good and Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are both very good in their respective roles - although I would say that their acting chemistry is much stronger than their romantic chemistry.
All told, Passengers lacks suspense, tension, intensity, and with underwritten characters and a rather poorly explained story you'll probably find yourself getting a very meagre return on the near 2 hours of your life that you'll spend watching this film.