movie reviews - Passengers
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
This is a Sci-Fi flick about colonists headed for a distant planet. It's a long way from Earth, it's going to take many, many years to get to its destination. The ship hits some debris in space en route. It's not enough to destroy the ship or even to cause the ship to respond with some kind of automated course alteration or to even wake the crew. Honestly, it's not clear from the events of the movie that the ship even notified anyone on Earth.
The incident does however disrupt the life support system of one of the passengers, and he wakes up. Realizing that he's the only one awake and that there are decades left in his trip, he sends a message to Earth but then realizes that it will take twenty years for them even to get a response - and that no rescue is possible.
Our man is a mechanic and he tries his best to get into the bridge or to wake some members of the crew. This proves impossible, and he spends the weeks and months that follow in complete isolation except for a robotic bartender who makes for limited company. Becoming increasingly obsessed with a female passenger who remains (asleep? in stasis?) he's on the edge. Meanwhile - and unknown to him or even the viewer - there is a great deal of trouble unfolding in the .. I want to say engine room.
I enjoyed quite a bit about this movie. Yes, it requires plot holes through which you could pilot the space ship itself. As someone who works in IT, I found their lack of redundant control systems simply unbelievable, and the lack of paths to human intervention ridiculous. That's not how we run small technology startups, let alone multi-billion-dollar investments and once-in-a-species-lifetime colonization efforts. Still, there's lots of engaging scenes and the story as a whole reached a satisfying conclusion.
Recommended.