PASSENGERS is an intimate sci-fi romance which also touches upon how lonely it can be in space if you’re the only one awake out of 5000 passengers and 200 plus crew members.  Jim (Chris Pratt) wakes up 90 years too early on the Avalon from his malfunctioning hibernation pod during the course of a 120 year journey from Earth to Homestead 2.  He is faced with the dilemma of waking up another passenger named Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) because he will be dooming her to the same fate of not being alive when the Avalon reaches the colony world.   His problem is loneliness and maintaining his sanity with an android bartender as his only companion for a year.  When he wakes up Aurora, it is only a matter of when she will find out what he did and what they can do to save the ship because it is malfunctioning more and more since the first of many glitches caused Jim to wake up early.

 

Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence manage to carry this movie.  There is more on-screen chemistry between them than there was between Jen and the two males wanting her in the HUNGER GAMES movies.   Excellent production design and the vastness of space help sell the isolation that Jim feels and how Aurora feels after she is woken up.   The only misfire is the music score where sometimes less music is more and sometimes the music is clearly too manipulative.   Otherwise, PASSENGERS is an enjoyable sci-fi romance.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Eight deleted scenes cut for pacing reasons

 

Featurettes:

CASTING THE PASSENGERS- all about the cast and the characters they play

SPACE ON SCREEN: THE VISUAL EFFECTS OF PASSENGERS- a look at the visual effects of the movie

ON THE SET WITH CHRIS PRATT- follow Chris Pratt around on the set of PASSENGERS

CREATING THE AVALON- production design featurette

 

Outtakes from the Set has lots of laughs, film flubs, and other things

BOOK YOUR PASSAGE is a mock promo featurette on the homestead Company

Preview for THE PASSENGERS AWAKENING VR EXPERIENCE

 

Code to download and stream a digital HD copy of the movie

 

Available in select releases at Target stores is a bonus blu-ray disc that has JOURNEY TO THE STARS: THE MAKING OF PASSENGERS (a 25 ½ minute featurette) which has interviews with cast and crew as they talk about the story, cast/ characters, costume design, production design, space as another character, and the outside design look of the Avalon.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS: PASSENGERS is a good sci-fi romance which is carried by excellent chemistry between Pratt and Lawrence along with the awesome production design.  The behind-the-scenes extras are good except they shouldn’t have made the JOURNEY TO THE STARS featurette a Target exclusive.

 

This review is ©3-20-2017 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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