A beautiful sci-fi romance thriller with two wonderful leads.

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2016)

Passengers is a science fiction/romantic film that delivers a wonderful cast, and visuals. It may not be the best and feels a little short on the conflict that these characters face. Director Morten Tyldum does well with building a better romance story and showing some stunning visual effects.
I think Passengers deliver on the science fiction plot and for those who are seeking a romantic film. This film will fit in that expectations and better than most of the predictable redundant love movies out there.
The plot follows a starship Avalon that is on a 90 year voyage, transporting 5,000 colonists to a new home planet. Engineer Jim (Chris Pratt) hibernation pod malfunctions, awakening him 90 years early. After discovering that he is stuck on the ship alone with no back up support from Earth. Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) wakes up and realizes they are stuck in the ship alone and are unable to go back to their sleeping pods. With some occasional power outages, gravity shut offs, robotic droids malfunctioning on the ship. They realize there is something more happening that they need to fix. In order for the ship to make it to the new planet. And discovering a purpose for them to be waking up early.
The film starts out great, we have Jim waking up, and realizing his fate has been sealed that he will be dead by the time they reach their destination. It feels like a character study of loneliness. He can be alone for so long until his desire of needing a human companion. He takes a great advantage of the luxury ship to himself, except for the cafeteria and their restricted menu cause of his class on board. His only company would be a bartender droid Arthur (Martin Sheen), but to what length when he does not have a human connection. Jim's actions may not be the best in logic or some may call it greed or creepy. Without giving much spoilers from were the direction goes from there and would make better sense when seeing it for yourself. Aurora and Jim build a relationship, realizing they only have each other, when their is no hope of seeing their destinations by the time they get there.
Morten Tyldum does play with the direction of isolation on Jim's loneliness and his desire for love. Chris Pratt is a great actor, playing a character that is humorous, and emotionally driven at the same time. Jennifer Lawrence is a beautiful actress that gives her best with the role as well. Seeing the two is a perfect chemistry on screen. What also made the film even better is music composer Thomas Newman. His music score is beautiful, and the sound works with the stunning visual effects. Visuals when seeing Jim floating in space and out in the horizon of stars. Or seeing them witness as they pass by a big giant red star. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto did well in capturing some fantastic shots from the visual set pieces to set design.
My only problem with the film is the conflict. The conflict is the ship malfunctioning and threatening the lives of everyone on board. This does not happen until the third act which switches gear into a science fiction thriller. With this film on a good concept idea on a central theme of mortality, human connection, etc. I feel like screenwriter Jon Spaihts could have build so much into a more complex thriller with this space voyage instead of a simple quick fix conflict. It is still a wonderful film with two amazing leads, impressive visuals, and direction.