Passengers (2016)

Going to go out on a limb here, but this film gets a bad rep. Passengers is by no means a masterpiece of the sci-fi genre, but certainly is an enjoyable film which fits within the criteria. Think of it as Titanic in space, only a little more messy and unsure. The performances are pretty good, with Chris Pratt and Michael Sheen stealing the limelight in particular. The almost gratuitous cameo from Lawrence Fishburne is short but sweet, but adds more to the film than it needed to personally. Jennifer Lawrence wasn't great, in fact, she wasn't even average. She just grew to be perpetually annoying and her character development wasn't great. The scenes where it's just Jim and Arthur on the Avalon were far more enjoyable than most of the action pieces, although I really enjoyed the third act. This film has beautiful cinematography also, and very good set and costume design. The aerial sequences once they step out of the Avalon into gravity, was beautiful and definelty one of my favorite shots in the film. Morten Tyldum is a director I like, as he did The Imitation Game, another emotionally compelling movie which blew me away. But unfortunately, this film didn't show his calibre as a director. The screenplay from Jon Spaiths was fair average and had a lot of work done to it since the script made its way online a few years back. There was an element of horror in the script, but it was non existent in the final product. The score from Thomas Newman is absolutely brilliant, though. That is to be said about Imagine Dragons' original song Levitate, which is infuriatingly catchy to say the least! I definetly do not think Passengers is as bad as people say, it's cheesy and boring at times, but I really enjoyed it. I do doubt the BBFC's decision to rate it a 12A, as some elements were definetly pushing the criteria of a 15 for sure. I can see myself buying the bluray and watching again, as for the most part, it was a lot of fun and very funny in some cases, and serious when it needed to be. I enjoyed it, I liked the orchestral score, cinematography, the acting performances (some of them), the entire idea which I thought was very creative and innovative and the third act. It drags, sure, and there's a lot of uneccesary build-up, but it's a lot of fun. 3.5/5