Passengers is a film that sounds like it should have been a success. It boasted an original story – no small feat in Hollywood these days – of Jon Spaihtswho later co-authored both works dune Films. The director, Morten Tyldumpreviously directed the Oscar-nominated The imitation game. It also had the peculiarity of uniting Chris Pratt And Jennifer Lawrence at the peak of their careers; Lawrence had just Hunger Games Saga, while Pratt emerged on the blockbuster scene with Guardians of the Galaxy And Jurassic World. But after its publication, Passengers received mixed reviews – particularly regarding a plot twist hidden in the marketing. With Passengers With the series currently sitting at the top of Prime Video’s charts, it’s worth taking a look at this twist and how it impacts the ending (and not necessarily for the better).
What is “Passengers” about?
Passengers is set in the distant future, when the deteriorating conditions on Earth leave humanity no choice but to flee to a new home in huge spaceships. The journey is supposed to take decades, so the ships’ passengers are put into hibernation – but a malfunction awakens the engineer Jim Preston (Pratt) 90 years earlier than planned. Jim almost goes mad from the isolation, but eventually stumbles upon a capsule with Aurora Lane (Lawrence), a successful journalist. Jim wakes Aurora and tells her that her capsule is malfunctioning, and the two fall in love.It wasn’t until a year later that Aurora learned the truth, and to say she was devastated would be an understatement.
Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence aren’t the only ones who woke up during “Passengers”
Despite the star cast of Pratt and Lawrence (and the instant chemistry, despite the disturbing setting) Passengers raises the stakes when it awakens another passenger: Deck Officer Gus Mancuso (Laurence Fishburne). Gus reveals to Jim and Aurora that several collisions with asteroids not only caused him and Jim to wake up, but the ship is so damaged that everyone on board will die. Since Gus has access to certain levels of the ship, he wants to try to repair it, but falls ill when his cryopod malfunctions. Before he dies, Gus gives Jim and Aurora the tools they need to access the ship, including codes for the bridge.
“Passengers” ends on a romantic (but undeserved) note
Jim and Aurora learn that the fusion reactors powering their ship have been severely damaged and the only way to save the ship is to vent the reactor. Passengers Since this is a science fiction movie, things go horribly wrong and Jim has to manually vent the reactor – which almost kills him. Aurora is able to save him and the ship is finally back to full capacity after its reactor is repaired. After repairs in sickbay, Jim discovers that the capsule can act as an emergency sleep unit and urges Aurora to go inside so she can wake up with the rest of the crew. She decides instead to spend the rest of her life with himAnd Passengers ends with the rest of the ship’s inhabitants waking up and realizing that Jim and Aurora have lived a whole life. Although this would have been perfect in any other film, it serves as a microcosm of Passengers problems.
“Passengers” is never sure what kind of film it wanted to be
The main problem with Passengersapart from the fact that it hides a rather disturbing twist in its marketing, is that he can never commit to a film genre. The science fiction romance was portrayed in films such as The fountain and the matrix Trilogy. The revelation that Jim woke Aurora up is handled well at first (she tells him in no uncertain terms to stay away from her, and he makes things worse by constantly begging her to talk to him), but in the end she decides to forgive him, even though she will die without having seen her family or friends. Some reviews even pointed out that Vox said it was “three films in one”, while Time And Rolling Stone Both felt that the film would have been more interesting if it had maintained a darker tone after Jim’s secret was revealed.
But the person who probably has the most reservations about Passengers is Lawrence himself. In an interview with The New York Timesshe revealed that Adele had advised her not to sign on to the film, and she wished she had followed the singer’s advice: “Adele told me not to do it! She said, ‘I think space movies are the new vampire movies.’ I should have listened to her.” Ultimately Passengers is a film at war with itself; it may have been conceived as an epic sci-fi love story, but the story required an approach that the cast and crew may not have been willing to take.
Passengers can be streamed on Prime Video in the US
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