Film review: Passengers

I was in two minds about seeing this because I wasn’t sure it was going to be my sort of thing. Had a spare evening though, so I thought why not? The good news is that I wasn’t all that disappointed. Yup, it’s an okay film.

Travelling in a huge starship on his way to a new home and a new life, one passenger (played by Chris Pratt) finds himself awoken ninety years too early by a ship malfunction. Another passenger (Jennifer Lawrence) is also woken up, and so the two of them, alone, falling in love, and in a race against time to repair the ship and save the lives of the other five thousand sleeping passengers.

passengers.jpg

Okay, that’s the plot; sounds simple, but I can’t say too much else without giving the whole thing away. Chris Pratt, in a rare non-comedy role is surprisingly good as the distressed mechanic, and Jennifer Lawrence is… well, surprisingly passable as an even-more distressed writer (trust me, she has good reason) facing a life of total isolation. Both of them, however, were in danger of being outclassed by Michael Sheen, even though he was playing an android bartender with a very limited AI and oddly narrow range of movement.

The design of the ship (inside and out) was simply stunning, and the special effects were top notch. I liked the film a lot, but perhaps not as much as I wanted to. Unfortunately, to tell you why I’m going to have to spoil it for you, so do not read any further if you haven’t seen it yet!

Okay?

Are you sure?

Last warning!

Alrighty then…

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Rogue One.jpg

One of the best things about using a word processor is being able to do clever stuff like this:

  1. The Phantom Menace
  2. Attack of the Clones
  3. Revenge of the Sith
  4. A New Hope
  5. The Empire Strikes Back
  6. Return of the Jedi
  7. The Force Awakens

Y’see if I wanted to, I could slot a new line between, for example, three and four, and all the other numbers below it would shift down one to make room. You can’t do that with movies unfortunately, which means Rogue One gets a bit of a bum deal; it gets tagged with ‘A Star Wars Story’ like it’s a weird cousin you don’t invite to the same party as your posh guests. This is a shame, because Rogue One deserves to be slotted into the main episode line as it’s one of the best of the lot as far as I’m concerned.

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