What did the critics think of Passengers?

Has ‘Passengers’ turned out to be a titanic dud?

The upcoming sci-fi romance starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence showed so much promise. It stars two of the hottest film stars on the planet, in a stylish, seemingly-thrilling sci-fi adventure. What could go wrong?

According to some reviews, quite a lot, actually.

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‘Passengers’ stars Chris Pratt as Jim Preston – a mechanical engineer and passenger of the Avalon – a fully-automated space craft on a 120-year trip to ferry 5000 passengers to a new promised land far away from Earth.

But when his hibernation pod malfunctions, he’s left all on his lonesome. That is, until Jennifer Lawrence turns up as fellow passenger Auroro Lane – a high-class creative type who he obviously falls in love with. So far, so ‘Titanic’.

And according to some critics, it sinks just as fast, too.

“Given the imaginative setup and the material’s provocative questions about mortality — not to mention the future of humankind — the movie’s neat lessons about the nature of happiness and a life well lived feel too easy, too obvious,” says The Hollywood Reporter.

But ultimately, this is how they sum it up:

“Dazzling design and star power don’t quite keep this starship afloat.”

Sadly, that’s not the half of it… with other critics unable to hold back with a series of rather brutal reviews.

“An unwelcome thematic stain regarding issues of male captivity fantasy and victimization makes the heroic derring-do that dominates the second half ring laughably hollow,” says The Wrap.

And it doesn’t fare much better with Variety.

“‘Passengers’ is the tale of a lonely guy in space, the drama of an ethical conundrum, a love story featuring two of the hottest actors on the planet, and a turbulent sci-fi action-adventure – and for all of that, it manages to be not a very good movie.”

What exactly is the big problem with ‘Passengers’? It seems that some critics are put off by the rather stalkery themes at play… and CraveOnline sums it up perfectly.

“It tries to pass itself off as romantic but it doesn’t seem to realize that it’s actually careened headlong into stalker territory,” they explain. “It’s the story of a man trapped in the cold dark void of space with only one other person, a woman who cannot escape him no matter how much she eventually wants to.”

Ouch.

Several other major outlets completely savage the sci-fi drama, with Rotten Tomatoes currently giving ‘Passengers’ a 29% rating based on 14 reviews. But it’s not all doom and gloom – it seems some critics even liked it.

“Passengers is a sweeping romance about true star-crossed lovers, offering adults a different kind of space opera,” says Den of Geek. “In addition to its high-concept premise, the hook of the film is how unapologetically dark and enigmatic its set-up actually can be for a romance.”

But they still couldn’t bring themselves to give it more than 3 out of 5 stars.

Will audiences love the movie? For now, we’ll have to wait and see. But it looks as though ‘Passengers’ has quite an uphill battle ahead.

‘Passengers’ heads to cinemas on 21 December 2016.

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