Not Great, but an Enjoyable Trip

Rating: 8/10 (12 August 2017)

This is not a great movie. This is even not "One to watch", but this movie is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday night.
The movie start with a death sentence. Computer error wakes Jim up 30 years into a 120 year hibernation and condemns him to die before reaching his destination. A year later, he has explored the whole ship and tried everything to get himself back into hibernation and reach his new home. Then he sees Aurora and falls in love with her after researching her life and watching her personal videos. After much debate he finally falls victim to his loneliness and wakes her up in the need for human contact and the love he has developed.
The accusations of date rape are absurd. Aurora falls in love with Jim. She makes a conscious choice for this. She doesn't sleep with him or fall in love with him through pity, or fear, she does so through personal choice. I want to make this clear and also to make the point that most of the junk being thrown at this movie is because Jim woke up first. If it was Aurora who had woke up Jim then the movie would probably have won 17 Oscars and been held as a rallying cry for women in Space!
The movie has a lot going for it. The characters are deep, well meaning and best of all, flawed. Jim has a lot of difficulties being alone and Aurora has intimacy issues illustrated by her videos from her old friends. Humans are not perfect and neither of the protagonists are painted as such. The physics are just the right side of believable (even using the gravity of a star to create kinetic energy) and although this is just a love story, there is more about it than a standard Hollywood movie.
The ending is written to give the viewer the idea of just how much can be achieved in a lifetime. The logistics of this are arguable, but as this is set in an unknown time in the future, how can you disagree?
All in all, a well spent couple of hours dreaming of Space.