The SILENT RUNNING of the 21st century.

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2016)

I first saw that cult-classic forty-four years ago, at the Warner Theater in Torrington. It starred Bruce Dern as Earth's last tree- hugger, willing to spend the rest of his life alone (except for three maintenance robots named for Donald Duck's nephews) safeguarding a veritable ark full of biospheric domes. Domes full of plant life that a post-apocalyptic Earth government apparently doesn't think worthy of replanting during the recolonization of Earth!
Well, this movie is similar, if not identical.
Chris Pratt plays Jim Preston. A mechanical engineer seemingly thawed out of cryogenic hibernation, by accident, following the starship Avalon's collision with a rogue asteroid one-third of the way toward Homestead II (a prospective Earth colony). Laurence Fishburne plays Chief Deck Officer Gus Mancuso; a member of the crew likewise accidentally thawed out ahead of schedule (although, two years after Jim). And Jennifer Lawrence plays Aurora Lane; a beautiful journalist who gets thawed out in between.
The only difference, in her case, is that Jim woke her up, deliberately!
The poor guy was lonely. And, for the first twelve months after her awakening, she eases that loneliness. Vice-versa, too. But, Arthur the android bartender blabs the truth to her, and the romance goes temporarily awry.
This is when the audience gets the real sense of things starting to go majorly wrong. You see, Arthur was specifically ordered _not_ to blab! So, why did he disobey? Because, the ship's governing A.I. is starting to lose power! Causing everything to gradually go haywire aboard the Avalon. That's why I don't think Jim and Gus' reawakening was accidental, after all. I think the A.I. programmed their thaw-outs as part of some contingency plan. Of course, I have no proof of that.
That's just a glorified wild guess on my part.
I enjoyed this movie more than I initially thought I would. The chemistry between Chris and Jennifer rivals that between her and Josh Hutcherson in the "Hunger Games" films. And, it's _definitely_ steamier than the so-called romance between Chris and Theresa Saldana's characters in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY! The only reason I don't give this a perfect ten?
I wish the film's happy ending had included an uncredited cameo by Josh Hutcherson as Jim and Aurora's son. Ah, well! They say you can't have everything. So, I guess I'll settle for this being my last rave review of 2016.
Happy New Year, folks!