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Author
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Topic: Passengers
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 01-05-2017 05:58 PM
When I first watched the trailer for this movie I thought, "Gosh, this looks like Silent Running." Having now watched the movie I can say that while the beginning has a lot in common with Silent Running, it doesn't give you the ecological beating-over-the-head that you got from Silent Running. Since I like Silent Running, I really looked forward to seeing this one.
And then I read the reviews, which are uniformly terrible. I saw one that said, "In space no-one can hear you retch." Ok... Well shucks. I kind of dialed my expectations down after reading reviews.
Having said all of that, this is a really good movie and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure, the story is kind of cheesy, but who cares? It's fun to watch and has a lot of interesting things happen along the way.
If you like science fiction movies that are just fun, watch Passengers. Pay no attention to the reviewer behind the curtain!
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-11-2017 05:06 PM
I believe one of the reasons that this picture is not doing very good business is that word is getting around that it's an incredible sexist mess, and it is. The very premise is pretty offensive: the guy is lonely and he falls into love with the Jennifer Lawrence character, so he wakes her up and thereby robs her of EVERYTHING: her dreams, her career, her goals, her chance to return to Earth ("He murdered me", she says to a briefly awakened crew member, and she has a pretty good argument for saying that). But what's really unbelievable is . . .
Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle
. . . she winds up forgiving him completely, to the point of refusing to go back to sleep when the opportunity arrises, and they live happily ever after instead of her kicking his balls into his asshole and going back to bed for the rest of the trip.
Come the hell ON, man. I realize that the end is of her own free will, which makes her either the most forgiving person between two worlds or the possessor of the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome since Patricia Hearst. Either way, this picture is just a male domination fantasy on the big screen. Shame, the technical aspects and art direction are top notch.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-23-2017 07:05 PM
This review is kind of spoilery, but I figure most people have seen it by now so I didn't bother to hide them. You have been warned.
I found this as enjoyable as could be, but it's one of those movies you better not think about too much, because a lot of questions start to pop up if you do.
A lot of the time, the movie treads along the same lines as a lot of action movies, in which some person (in this case, Jennifer Lawrence's character) hasn't got a clue about things one minute, and becomes an expert about something the next (in this case, exiting a spaceship and effecting a rescue) by just flying by the seat of her very attractive pants. That's just one example; there are many.
I thought the ending was kind of dopey, especially the fact that in the big garden they grew, there were birds flying around, and waterfalls. How exactly did that happen? I suppose it's plausible that there were a lot of plant and animal species packed along on the trip to populate the "new world" with, but how could they survive the journey? Or did they have their own hibernation pods we didn't get to see?
When it went to the "88 years later" segment, I thought sure a bunch of descendants of Jennifer and Chris would be running around. But that didn't happen, or maybe they were saving that for the sequel (which given this movie's performance, probably won't happen).
I can get the "sexist" comments and the "why in the hell would she suddenly forgive him?" angle that many reviewers are taking, but this movie takes a lot of liberties and doesn't tell us "what they were thinking" too much. For example, after he (apparently) is lost in space, she could have spent about five minutes thinking "Wait...He is an asshole, but am I really better off? I'm all alone, I don't know diddly jack about how to fix things around here, plus a little sex now and then WOULD be nice, and Arthur the bartender isn't exactly equipped for that, so....OK, I'll make the best of the situation and forgive the sonofabitch."
Yes, there is the angle that she could have gone back to sleep and gotten on with her previously-planned life, but maybe she figured, I've only got ONE life either way, and who knows what ELSE might go wrong with this rattle-trap spaceship, especially after all the tinkering and explosions and stuff running into it and all, and maybe I would never meet anyone as hunky as Chris Pratt, might wind up being lonely and unhappy despite having written a killer book...and of course people will do almost ANYthing when they're in love. So that explains it totally, at least for me.
Anyway, this movie falls in to the very rare (for me) category of a movie being exceptionally silly, but still a lot of fun to watch. I enjoyed it a lot, and like I said, if you don't think about it too hard, it's a fun time. And there is great chemistry between the two leads, and Arthur the bartender is a hoot. And the music score was impressive, I thought. The set designs were very cool, and Jennifer Lawrence does look incredible in that bathing suit. So I didn't like this movie, but I liked it in spite of that fact.
2.5 out of 5 stars.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 03-23-2017 06:22 AM
Overall: 4/5
Production Design: 5/5
Sound: 4/5
3D Depth: 5/5
Saw this with four different friends, mix of men & women (one with some mild to strong activist/feminist leanings), some left leaning and right leaning, and I didn't hear a word about sexism from our feminist friend, and believe me, she pounces on anything that wanders into that territory.
The female character certainly displayed righteous anger; it wasn't like she was not in control of the situation she and dealt with it. We all discussed the fact that although the back drop was science fiction and there was the crisis based on the ship's failure that required the characters to overcome, there was a strong focus on the human dilemma which I found very compelling. The real moral issue of committing a pretty dastardly act in order to save one's self -- a problem we spent many a seminar in philosophical ethics 101 back in college. You are mountain climbing with a buddy; you fall; he is holding on to your tether line below you; you can't hold on much longer. Do you cut the tether to save your life or do you both die? Jim was about to commit suicide due to the year's isolation; the awakes her in desperation. Interesting dilemma -- it really isn't murder as she claims, just a life changing move. From that point both have to find a way to life with the life they've got. She could kill him out of anger (she almost does), but then would she be in the same untenable position as he was...would she eventually be suicidal?
We saw this in 3D which was a perfect medium for this story. The 3D depth was spectacular, not only in the space sequences, but the massive, expansive set designs lent themselves so very well to the 3D treatment.
There were those sumptuous high-tech sets, but there in the suit up room, some set dresser, perhaps as an in-joke that only people in the industry would catch, or maybe just because the color of the case fit in easily with the rest of the set, but there in the shot, left side of the screen, sitting on a counter-top shelf for a goodly amount of time clear as day, is a 1950s era Bell & Howell JAN 16mm projector. Check out the sequence around 1h43m53 where Jim and Aurora come back from that duel rescue where Jim was ready to give up his life for her...she ready to risk hers to save him and she revives him in the medical pod. Tell me that's not a B&H JAN! BTW, I can't see how she could be seen as a "damsel in distress," what with her resolve being just as determined and powerful to live as his. And we also liked the theme that no one knows what life will bring them; the trick is to make the best of what you've got, because it's all you've got.
Question: doesn't the word "Starship" belong to either Paramount or Gene Roddenberry?
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