Although that may sound like the start of a negative review, despite a few structural considerations and the films predictable nature, this film was actually rather enjoyable. After all, all media follows an archetype, and this managed to get me to overlook some slightly annoying flaws, and instead entice me to invest in, and follow the narrative intensely.
Passengers is based on a space journey of over 5000 people, leaving Earth and emigrating to a newly found colonized planet. Due to an initially unexplained technical fault, 3 people, on separate occasions, are woken up 90 years early - leaving them stuck in space, somewhere between Earth and their destination with just each others company. Due to the small involvement of the 3rd awakened passenger, we are shown the relationship developing between the two protagonists, Jim and Aurora, and the inevitable disruption of their relationship, then a further obstacle that explains the faults and problems occurring in the narrative, which then gives the protagonists their main mission of the film - you guessed it, having to save everyone, of course!
Although an overall enjoyable film, some questionable considerations have arose since our post-discussion of this, one of the final movies of 2016.
We noticed that there are three main parts to this film - Jim waking up early, adjusting to this big change in his life and what problems come with it, then comes a middle part, with Aurora waking also, which shows their relationship developing through living together, and a final conclusion, including the major disequilibrium and the pair's mission. This leads us to the first downfall we considered. This film being a jumble of different plots means, for us, it lacked the focus we desire on certain aspects of the narrative and character development. With the ending feeling a little rushed, and sub-conclusions and problems solved throughout the film seeming 'jumped in to' and unrealistic, more focus on important milestones was needed for this film to be able to fully engage.
The characters were played and portrayed well by Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, showing the couple's connection and complicated feelings appropriately. We were able to empathize with both characters and understand their personalities and feelings. Saying that, at some points we feel, due to how easy it was to naturally link and compare Passengers to films with similar narratives, more could have been done, either by actors or producers, to make these characters their own.
Both the sound and visuals were very impressive throughout the film. The non-diegetic sound effects and background music, especially at the start of the film, work well with it's tonal shifts, portraying the beauty of space and 'paradise'. It successfully plays a vital role in enhancing the mood and meaning of scenes - adding to both viewers understanding of what is happening, as well as their perception of what may go on to happen. The visual design, effects and mise-en-scene were, as anticipated, brilliant. Like the audio, it helps to portray spaces of 'paradise', one of the film's themes. In my personal opinion, the sound and visual being effective was of even more importance in a film like this, which has a very limited number of characters, and so was executed very well.
Despite minor disappointing factors, we both did really like watching this film. With not normally liking films that are too easily predicted, it would have been nice to have had an unforeseen turn in the story - while managing to keep us gripped and engaged with inviting characters and an exciting array of possible directions for the film to go, we did feel like we had pretty much seen the film already.
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