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Billed as a romance, the premise of 2016’s space sci-fi film Passengers, is debatable. Viewers can decide for themselves what they think of the movie as it is now streaming on FreeVee, Amazon’s free ad-supported service. The film stars Chris Pratt and Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence.
Pratt plays Jim Preston, a passenger en route from Earth on a spaceship called The Avalon to a different planet – a journey that requires stasis as it takes 120 years. Jim wakes up with 90 years left on the trip after an asteroid hits and damages The Avalon.
The Controversial Plot of Passengers
Pratt’s character lives alone on the ship for one year before deciding to wake up a beautiful woman named Aurora Lane (Lawrence), who is also in stasis. The catch is, at first, he doesn’t tell her he’s the one who woke her. Jim is thus gaslighting her into believing they were both accidentally awakened because he wants companionship. Waking her pretty much ensures that she will die before they reach the new planet.
Aurora eventually finds out that Jim was the one who woke her and is not happy. However, when the ship starts experiencing more problems, and a crew member named Gus (Laurence Fishburne) wakes up, the pair find their way back to each other, despite Aurora being tricked.
The Marketing May Have Missed The Mark
The film was marketed as a romance between two people who woke up and fell in love, which also was controversial because it did not disclose the entire plot.
Passengers grossed $100 million at the box office in the U.S. and $303.1 million worldwide against a budget of $110 million. Critically, the movie did not score well and has a 30% on Rotten Tomatoes and a C- rating from AV Club.
Passengers
CBR previously said that Passengers wasted the talent of Pratt and Lawrence, arguably two of the biggest stars in Hollywood. It ranked No. 4 on CBR’s list of sci-fi movies that fans anticipated but were disappointed by, saying the romance felt forced and noting viewers could be irritated by some of the unethical decisions and motives Jim makes in the movie.
Another CBR list called Passengers “one of the worst romance movies ever,” because Jim condemned Aurora to death without her consent. But, the movie is subjective as a CBR list of the 10 best Chris Pratt movies called Passengers an “overlooked space romance” and states that the movie is a “great, heartfelt approach to romance.”
Passengers also stars Michael Sheen (Good Omens) as the android bartender, Arthur. Andy Garcia makes a brief appearance as Captain Norris.
Pratt will next be seen in Netflix’s new sci-fi movie The Electric State, with Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) and Anthony Mackie (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), set to be released in 2025. Pratt stars as Keats, a war veteran and long-haul trucker, and Brown plays Michelle, a young woman looking for her lost brother that she once believed to be dead.
Lawrence is currently working on an upcoming thriller/drama called Die, My Love, produced by award-winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The project, also starring Robert Pattinson (The Batman), is listed as in production on IMDb. Lawrence is also serving as a producer on the film.
Passengers is streaming on FreeVee.
Source: Amazon FreeVee
