It’s been an interesting time for Marvel star Chris Pratt. While the actor has scored some big hits in recent years with The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Garfield Movie, two box office successes that he lent his voice to, his actual on-screen presence has been a little bit of a different situation. Netflix’s The Electric State was poorly received by critics, and his most recent offering, Mercy, also was poorly received and underperformed at the box office as well. But while Pratt’s current work may be a little uneven, some of his previous films have fared far better — including a controversial sci-fi blockbuster that’s headed to Hulu.
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Arriving on Hulu on February 28th, 2016’s Passengers stars Pratt and The Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence as two passengers on an interstellar spacecraft headed to a colony 120 years travelling distance from Earth. However, they are awakened from suspended hibernation unexpectedly 90 years early. While the film was met with mixed reviews, Lawrence and Pratt’s performances received particular praise and the film was a box office success with a gross of over $300 million.
Passengers Is a Sci-Fi Romance With a Very Problematic Story
While Passengers is technically a sci-fi romance, it’s a deeply flawed one which is why it is such a controversial film. It isn’t merely a story of two people on a long space journey who wake up from suspended hibernation early; Jim (Pratt) is awakened early when damage to the ship causes his pod to malfunction and leave him unable to return to hibernation. He is the only person awakened in this malfunction — until a year later, when he notices a woman, Aurora Lane (Lawrence) in a hibernation pod, and decides to wake her up so he has a companion even though he knows that once he does so, she won’t be able to return to hibernation and he’s taking away her choice in the matter — and robbing her of the life she chose for herself.
To make matters worse, when Jim actually does wake Aurora up, he misleads her about the situation. Jim lets her think it was merely a malfunction like his situation. She later finds out the truth and is rightfully enraged. As the story continues, and after a near-catastrophe, it’s discovered that there is one place on the ship that could be used as a hibernation pod for one person giving Aurora a chance to get back the life she wanted by going back to sleep, but instead, she chooses to stay with Jim. While the film is beautifully shot and beautifully acted, it’s really hard to get away from the creepy and uncomfortable lack of consent in how its central love story starts.
Despite this, the film was a box office hit and a solid win for Pratt and Lawrence. The film also received two Academy Award nominations, one for Best Original Score and one for Best Production Design. It will be interesting to see how the film fares now, a decade after its release, and now that it’s headed to Hulu to stream at the end of the month.
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