Passengers Movie Review

Passengers (2016)

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Written by: Jon Spaihts
Directed by: Morten Tyldum
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen
Rated: PG-13

Plot
Jim (Chris Pratt) wakes up ninety years early on a spacecraft traveling far into space to start a new colony.

Verdict
This blends a lot of good ideas into one movie without fully developing any of the concepts. This starts as a character study, morphs into a romance, and ends as an action movie.
While it's an enjoyable movie, it's frustrating to see all the pieces present to make this really good, but not pulling it together. I can tell you exactly how to make this movie great, and I do in my review.
The ending feels like a studio ordered a rewrite, robbing the movie of any impact it could have had. It's very standard.
Watch it.

Review
Passengers has a great start with a uniquely designed, massive ship. The ship is fully automated and encounters an asteroid field, with the ship's computer directing energy to the shields. The impacts create multiple malfunctions that the ship is able to repair quickly, except for Jim's hibernation pod. It's only later we learn the true impact of the asteroid field encounter.
Jim had planned to start a new life on the planet Homestead II, where his skills as a mechanic would be of the utmost importance. It's implied that on Earth, his job has become automated. He was one of five thousand passengers that were willing to leave Earth and start a new life from scratch, though he got a discount due to his occupation.
He quickly discovers that the malfunction woke him up 90 years early in a 120 year space flight. There's no way he can get back to hibernation. He'll die before the ship ever reaches it's destination. While we get a quick montage depicting Jim's struggles with being isolated, this was also a missed opportunity. It's a lack of creativity both for how Jim would or could occupy himself and a lack of showcasing the ship.

This is a Groundhog Day (1993) moment. Just as Phil Connors used his isolation for personal gain before falling down the pit of despair, we see Jim eat fancy food before he stops leaving the upgraded suite he began occupying. Jim's montage lacks creativity, instead relying on the length of his beard to equate to his level of hopelessness. It should have used these moments to build Jim's character by showing us what he likes, similar to what Groundhog Day did with Phil. The quick montage we get is incredibly generic with no bearing on the movie at large. The movie could have really had some fun with this. We could have seen him drawing on pods, decorating for holidays, or even being a mechanic which is something the movie tells us he likes. How would his relationship with a robot bartender progress over a year? Would he watch pods, daydreaming about having friends? This would have given us a better lead in to him meeting Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), instead of creating a situation where Jim can later say, "You saved my life." That line is too cliche to use in any movie.

Unknown to Jim and Aurora is the ship's error log, which the movie uses as a timer for the impending doom. They don't realize despite things falling from the ceiling that the ship is malfunctioning. With all of the automation this ship has, how did such a massive error go undetected? The method the movie uses to reveal information they should already know is slightly baffling. It feels like studio meddling.
At this point we have an action movie. We get a few manipulative scenes where the movie teases the deaths of both characters. I was impressed when I thought the movie was going to kill Jim as he sacrificed himself in a Titanic (1997) like scene, but Aurora saves him despite how improbable that is.

The studio had to have meddled with this ending, it feels way too cliche. There is a great ending here, but it got obscured. Jim and Aurora have a major breach of trust, and the movie uses the action movie ending to just move right past it to a happy ending. The final scene even feels like it was lifted from a very different and much darker ending. 

SPOILERS

We never really see Jim's loneliness, something the movie Moon (2009) did really well.
His loneliness is so consuming that he struggles with whether he should wake up another passenger. He knows the implications, but he just wants a companion. Of course the person he considers waking up just happens to be an attractive young blonde.
Jim's only friend is the android bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen), who just isn't human enough. Jim does wake Aurora and deceives her about how she woke up. They become a happy couple, though it's not like they had many dating options. They are a mismatched couple that, while happy, probably wouldn't have met under any other circumstances. The bartender reveals to Aurora what happened after Jim, in front of her, tells Arthur they hold no secrets. He's a robot so he jumped to the logical conclusion since Jim told Arthur he was going to reveal everything to her. Aurora is just a little mad.

The ship awakens Laurence Fishburne's character due to fundamental errors with the ship. His only point is to move past the relationship drama and alert them that the ship is in a dire situation with a big invisible problem. Fishburne's character felt unnecessary, and a contrived way to give Jim and Aurora access to restricted parts of the ship and tell them something they already should know. They should know so many failures aren't standard. Instead of introducing a new character, it could have explored a War of the Roses (1989) scenario with two people at odds on a vast ship before coming together to save it. Even the best matched couples fight, and this movie expects us to buy their perfect relationship. It had the chance to explore life on a vast and remote ship as a pair or alone. I have to wonder if the original script had as much action.

To give Jim access to restricted portions of the ship, have him read the ships users manuals as he is now back in an extreme state of loneliness, now knowing that he has someone else on the ship that hates him. By reading the manuals he could have found a way to override access to restricted areas. While it's simple, how often do people miss the simple things because they didn't read the instructions? Jim should have realized the errors were a problem on his own. Aurora helps him because she doesn't want to die on the ship.

After they fix the ship, Jim discovers that one person can hibernate in the ship's medical bay. She decides to stay with him, despite what he did to her. It would have been a better arc to have her hibernate, still mad at him. She could tell the unknown story of what happened on the ship. Despite what he did to her, he did save 5,000 people. Instead we get a safe ending where they live happily ever after. This movie had a confidant ending, it actually had two. She could have lived on the ship after his tether broke and he floated into space. The final scene still works.

The way I would have ended it is to have her hibernate for the 88 years left. Have him start a farm and have to live with what he did. At least in this ending, he undid any wrongs. The last scene and his voice over actually work better this way. The final scene with the ship's crew waking up and seeing the farm Jim started is a great way to end it. He finally found a way to deal with his situation.