Three Marvel actors teamed up in this 2016 sci-fi movie that deserves a lot more recognition and praise than it received. Director Morten Tyldum has delivered some incredible stories over the years, including feature films such as The Imitation Game and Headhunters, and episodes of acclaimed TV shows including Jack Ryan, Defending Jacob, and Silo. His most recent feature film, however, hasn’t received the notoriety it deserves, even though it stars some heavy-hitters who have graced the Marvel Cinematic Universe and other Marvel franchises.
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Released nine years ago today on December 21, 2016, Passengers starred Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence as two passengers aboard a colony spacecraft traveling to another world who are woken from suspended animation 90 years early. Passengers earned $303.1 million at the global box office on a budget of $150 million, and only holds a 30% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite receiving mixed critics reviews, Passengers deserves some retrospective respect, and the audience score, which has the movie rated at a much-larger 63%, reflects this belief.
Why Passengers Deserves More Recognition 9 Years Later
After an asteroid collision damages the Avalon, Passengers saw mechanical engineer Jim Preston (Pratt) woken up 90 years before reaching his destination of Homestead II. He is alone on the ship, as the thousands of other colonists and all the crew remain in suspended hibernation. Jim makes the most of the bad situation, enjoying the ship’s entertainment suites, but he eventually expresses suicidal thoughts due to his isolation. He becomes infatuated with another sleeping passenger, however, writer and journalist Aurora Lane (Lawrence), and he struggles morally before finally deciding to wake her up for companionship, ultimately deciding her own fate.
The pair fall in love, but Aurora eventually learns the truth, so they go through a period of silence and animosity before eventually teaming up to save the ship and its colonists from disaster—joined by chief deck officer Gus Mancuso (Laurence Fishburne). Passengers had its problems, sure, but it’s particularly harsh to give it such a low approval rating. Performances from Pratt, Lawrence, Fishburne, and Michael Sheen as AI bartender Arthur are all brilliant, and we can really feel the moral turmoil that Jim feels before waking Aurora from her slumber.
It’s rare that a sci-fi movie of this scale has such a small cast, but by focusing primarily on Jim and Aurora, Passengers creates an intimate and deeply human story even in the depths of space. The movie balances moral questions with outright entertainment and sci-fi thrills, doing what many sci-fi adventures have failed to do. While the narrative was criticized for being controversial—having a male character decide to ultimately doom a female character by waking her up out of desire, Passengers story is actually deeply raw and wholly relatable. Passengers certainly deserves some retrospective praise.
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