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Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence star as ill-fated lovers on an ill-fated voyage in this ill-fated sci-fi romance.
Passengers should be the perfect Chris Pratt–Jennifer Lawrence vehicle. It has figured out how to isolate, with laser precision, the charisma of two of Hollywood’s most charismatic stars
—by plunking them onto a massive interstellar cruise ship where they are quite literally the only characters, save for a few humanoid robots and a skimpy Laurence Fishburne cameo.
It is resourceful in finding ways for them to radiate their personalities at us and one another: Here they are giggling as they’re serenaded over a candelit dinner by a chorus of droids with French accents.
Here they are dunking on each other during a one-on-one basketball game. Here they are grooving to DDR like a couple of inexplicably ripped preteens at a middle school dance.
But for audiences expecting a two-hour charm offensive, Passengers is not the movie you think you’re going to see. It’s something considerably darker and dumber.
In director Morten Tyldum’s second English-language movie (his first was The Imitation Game),
Pratt and Lawrence play Jim and Aurora, a mechanic and aristocratic writer, respectively.
They are two of the titular passengers on a 120-year cruise to Homestead II, where they will build a new life millions of miles away from “overpopulated, overpriced, and overrated” Earth.
Their vessel, the Starship Avalon, is full of some 5,000 humans and crewmembers whose metabolic function has been suspended for the journey.
They’ll all be awakened four months before landing—just enough time to enjoy such amenities as a swanky sushi joint and a swimming pool with a view of the stars. Except that Pratt’s space pod malfunctions, rousing him 90 years too early.