“I jumped right into the short lived job when I moved out to LA, so I didn’t really get much of a chance to explore my new home. I had so many things I wanted to do in the city that I would have to find time for. When I was laid off, one of the hidden blessings that I saw in it was that I would now have that time to have fun in the sun of SoCal. And by the sun, I mostly mean the bright stagelights, because now I’d get a chance to go to various show tapings. As part of this period of “”funemployment”” I had two solid weeks of such events, including seeing Chris Pratt on The Late Late Show with James Corden and Jennifer Lawrence on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Of course now is when I realize that while I took pictures of the bus that she defaced on the show I never Instagrammed them. Oh well. But yeah, as if this movie wasn’t already at the top of my Christmas priority list, I really was obligated to see it now.
Right so we established that this movie stars Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. The two are passengers on a spaceship that is headed for a new settlement far far away. Exactly 120 years of travel in suspended animation away. Except these guys wake up with 90 years still left on the clock. Uh oh.
First of all, yay for original movies! Even if they’re not perfect, they still get major points for effort. And this is an original story that asks tough questions and has an emotional impact. The flipside though is that being so small scale, the story was a little thin, and more of a problem was that almost every beat was predictable, especially towards the end. (Could that sentence have had anymore commas?)
However, the saving grace of the film, and what made it worth watching despite the flaws in the screenplay was the chemistry between our two leads. These two are superstars because they’re likeable and good at what they do. Together, they were electric on screen. What happened next in the story wasn’t as important as their next interactions. That’s what made the movie fun to watch. Well that and the beer that I had with it since I was watching it at the Alamo Drafthouse back home in Texas.
Passengers – \m/ \m/ \m/ \n”