Passengers (2016)

Passengers is a genre-mixing tribrid, but a fascinating one; instead of intermingling components of its genres, it weights them around certain parts of the film.

The film contains a carefully constructed premise: due to unforeseen circumstances, Jim Preston wakes from hibernation far too early in his journey. The film denies the viewer every recourse their minds can conjure, from waking the crew to returning to hibernation, and even phoning home. The film also chooses to make Jim's doom absolute; he will die before the ship reaches its destination and the other passengers wake up. Tightly bound together, these elements form the basis of the survival portion of the movie.

The romance portion is less convincing. The movie shows some self-awareness of Jim's transgressions but still seems to overlook them in the hopes we will be swept away by steamy moments on display. The dissonance is felt in the rapid-fire sequence establishing the intensity of our character’s new relationship, as Aurora remains unaware of Jim’s monstrous act of waking her up. Again, the film shows awareness here but perhaps not enough. This undermines the romance portion of the movie.

The action sequence is bog standard, coming prepackaged with a timely character arrival, a vague explanation of how to resolve the crisis, and a magic machine holding the answer to all our characters' problems. While narratively unimaginative, it mostly caps the film off successfully.

As a general strength, the ship is grand and the aesthetic is immaculate, perfectly contrasting with Jim and Aurora's hopeless situation. However, the ship’s sheen is an illusion, as it is slowly losing functionality. This aspect is compelling, giving a layer of glamor to a sinking ship and discombobulating both characters. The ship is treated as a sort of Titanic, pristine and incapable of error; even faced with the evidence of Jim waking up, the high glitz functionality of the ship is taken for granted. This is replicated in the audience, who are drawn far more to the dramatic developments of the story than the declining state of the ship.

The characters are deeply contrived, going so far as to name the female lead in a space movie "Aurora" and imbuing Jim Preston with every manly trait the writers could think of (and a wrench, in case you forget). Despite all this, Passengers is a worthy genre experiment and a relatively satisfying result.