Galatic romance that's a little thought provoking.

Rating: 7/10 (25 December 2016)

The mysterious trailer doesn't really give too much away and is possibly a little misleading, as the unravels an intriguing twist of fate being less than what the trailer suggests but then more so in other departments.
The Imitation Game director, Morten Tyldum gives us quite an impressive visual of a deep space journey that goes not so horribly wrong. A couple of passengers on an auto-piloted, interstellar cruise liner awaken some ninety years before reaching their destination.
Chris Pratt playing mechanical engineer, Jim Preston who's real life challenge is to step out of Star-Lord and the rest of his comical characters showing a different side to his acting, however, he can't seem to lose that sarcasm he does so well. He does a fine performance but it does lack believability at certain times.
Jennifer Lawrence plays Aurora Lane, an aspiring journalist on quite the quest to write the novel not ever written before. She actually appears stupid or floppy, over dramatic, but that's what makes her acting so more realistic. It's precisely what one would expect in real life and not a graceful outburst that's been obviously scripted. She's an absolute natural however I can't see this giving her another Oscar let alone any nominations. That goes for Pratt as well.
The final character is the ship herself. Going from being benevolent to then being ominous, like something lurking however watching; reminded be of Event Horizon for some reason. There's an assortment of voices used for different elements of the ship but surprisingly no Sigourney Weaver, however there's a familiar voice I couldn't place until reading it belonged to Emma Clarke, who's voice has been used for countless things including the iconic "Mind The Gap" on London's underground. Michael Sheen is brilliant as Arthur the android bartender, being quite uncomfortable, polite yet not entirely helpful. He breaks a major rule of bartending proving that robots can't ever replace humans.
As mentioned before, there's a couple of twists that the trailer hints at, which people should figure out quite quickly enough, but it doesn't take anything away from the shock or the disappointment in the characters you might feel. It's paced well considered the time the story spans, it's does allow for elements to sink in making you question what would you do if you were either character.
The technology is impressive with some neat ideas that isn't so heavy it becomes unbelievable. But it feels borrowed from other movies like Prometheus, Sunshine and even WALLE. The CGI and special effect are incredibly gorgeous. It's amazing how much can someone dress space up giving it quite the glorious, powerful yet dangerous and intimidating image. But it's nothing we haven't seen before.
There's a few minor errors like getting the maths wrong and some really unnecessary bits which I can only assume was part of a different edit, maybe a longer or elaborate ending. One part in particular becomes nothing more than a tease and I'm not talking about JLaw. Something of note here is the hype leading up to this movie, interestingly discussing the mild sex scene between the characters. For those of you expecting to perv over the beautiful JLaw, you might be disappointed. Just tell yourself it's a 12A, how saucy can it be? But you're not going to watch it for that are you? Right?
Thomas Newman does a good score, not quite his usual but certainly bears the Newman style. Like the films genre mix, there's a varied sound throughout the score, never having a central theme. No two tracks are the same and differ some from each other, tracks like "Sugarcoat the Galaxy", "Starlit" and "Cascade Failure" as examples.
Is it a sci-fi? No. Is it a romance or a drama, possibly a thriller? It's dips into all of these genres without actually committing to any of them, making the film quite undecided about itself and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. It certainly makes you think, judge and ponder the intentions weighing in the balance of selfishness and solitude. It's like an interstellar Titanic with bits of Cast Away and Solaris. A weird romance set on board on science fiction voyage.
Running Time: 8 The Cast: 7 Performance: 8 Direction: 8 Story: 8 Script: 7 Creativity: 8 Soundtrack: 8 Job Description: 7 The Extra Bonus Points: 0
69% 7/10