Picking back up on my favourite sci-movies, today’s selection isn’t necessarily a classic but it’s one I really like!
It’s Passengers (2016)
This film (as mentioned in a previous post) came out the same year as Arrival, another sci-fi film about aliens coming to earth and trying to communicate with us bla bla bla.
That film got rave reviews but (in my opinion) isn’t half as enjoyable to watch as this movie.
Sure, Passengers probably won’t go down in history as being one of the “best sci-fi movies of all time” but it’s still a really good watch!
If you haven’t seen it, this is what it’s about:
The Avalon, a sleeper ship transporting 5,000 colonists and 258 crew members in hibernation pods, is on course to the planet Homestead II, a journey lasting 120 years. Thirty years into the journey, an asteroid collision damages the ship and causes its computer to awaken one passenger, mechanical engineer James "Jim" Preston (Chris Pratt), 90 years too early.
After a year of solitude and loneliness, Jim must make an agonising choice: Live the rest of his life out alone and die before reaching the destination, or wake up another sleeping passenger thus condemning them to the same fate as himself.
I love the chemistry between Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence in this movie (if you believe the rumours they were having an affair at the time, but...🤷♂️).
With such a small cast including the scene stealing Michael Sheen (Underworld), Lawrence Fishburn (The Matrix) and a very small appearance by Andy Garcia (Ocean’s 11), the film does more than enough to hold the viewer’s attention with (for the most part) only one or two people on screen at any one time.
This is easily a film I can watch again and again. 👍