Passengers [Blu-ray]

Passengers is a 2016 movie starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. The movie is partly a sci-fi space drama, partly an action movie, partly a romantic drama, and partly an ethical thought experiment. Pratt stars as Jim Preston, a mechanical engineer aboard a spaceship called The Avalon, traveling from Earth to a new, habitable planet 60 light-years away from Earth. Technology has advanced to the point where the trip only takes 120 years, so the passengers aboard the ship are put in a state of suspended animation for most of the trip with different passengers being awakened in stages when the ship is within a couple of years of its destination. During the voyage, the ship is struck by a wayward asteroid, which damages the ship and causes Preston to be awakened 90 years too early. For the first portion of the movie, it is just Pratt and Michael Sheen (who plays the ship's computer/butler, Arthur). Then, over the course of the movie, Jennifer Lawrence's character, Aurora Lane is awakened, as is Lawrence Fishburne's character, Gus, who is the ship's deck officer. The movie transitions from a lost at-sea castaway kind of movie, to a romance movie, to a disaster movie all within the span of nearly four hours.For those who get the 4K blu-ray set, there are three discs. The 4k-UHD disc just has the movie, a 3D-Blu-Ray disc that again just has the movie, and a regular blu-ray disc that has the movie and all of the extras. The extras include four different making-of featurettes that range in length from four minutes to just over eleven minutes. Then there are about ten minutes of deleted scenes, a series of fake commercials promoting travel on The Avalon, a gag reel, and trailers for other movies. So, a decent amount is there for people who like watching the extras. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is wonderful, and the movie has a ton of great CGI visuals.Ultimately, the movie is long but does not really feel as long as it is. It is paced very well, and while the story is definitely a bit predictable in parts, it is entertaining. Given that Pratt has to carry the first portion of the movie on his own, with only a handful of scenes with Michael Sheen playing opposite him, he does a very good job portraying a guy who slowly starts to go crazy. Jennifer Lawrence does a good job with her character once she "comes to life" and the action portion of the movie is good as well. It is definitely worth the time to watch.

ACT I: The film takes place on a computer-operated spaceship bound to a planet in another galaxy believed suitable for colonization by the humans it is carrying. This was the second such mission, the first having been a huge success for its corporate backers, both historically and financially. Almost 3600 souls were on board, maintained in a state of suspended animation for the two centuries or so trip. But early in the voyage’s second century, something causes the suspended animation pod in which our hero laid sleeping to awaken him. So the movie starts with a powerful rendition of the human transition from a state of materially splendored existential ALONENESS, to a state of bottomless existential LONELINESS. His only company is an automated bartender who is perpetually agreeable to a fault. A particular fly in the ointment here is the fact that our fully grown-up hero discovers that the ship has yet another 90+ years to go before it reaches its destination, a length of time that is for-sure longer than even the longest lifetime he can reasonably expect to have left. In other words, he is likely to die alone before the ship can reach its destination, leaving him with not much to look forward to, as a social being, for the remainder of his years.ACT II: The movie then shifts into high gear when the man discovers both instructions on how to rejuvenate a pod, as well as a pod containing a beautiful young woman of the right age for him. He is immediately confronted with a most painful ethical dilemma, as he sees in her an ideal companion for the lonely and otherwise meaning life ahead of him. But to rejuvenate her pod would be to condemn her to the same fate as he finds himself trapped in—namely, a life likely to end considerably before the ship reaches its destination and all the other souls in suspended animation are reawakened. He tries hard to forestall his desperate longing for her, but eventually can no longer resist. While she is initially ignorant of how her pod had malfunctioned and reawaken her, the relationship between them grows (along with support for their dev eloping fondness for each other from the automated bartender), all the way to the point where the hero finds a ring and has decided to ask the heroine to marry him. However, just as this is about to happen, in a moment when the hero is called away by some mechanical problem with the ship, the automated bartender lets the cat out of the bag. When the hero reappears, the heroine explodes with rage at what he has done to her—selfishly condemning her to a fate similar to his—for which she has come to despise him and wants nothing more to do with him. The problem is that they lack access to any process that can reverse termination of the suspended animation. Both his sense of shameful guilt as well as the heroine’s spite and hostility for the hero rise to violent proportions, to where he begins to contemplate drastically self-injurious means of atonement.ACT III: At this point, a third suspended animation pod somehow opens independently, and a fourth character enters the scene. In full uniform, an extremely brusque and gruff, “strictly by the book,” “of few words,” and “take charge” stock character, who holds the Navy rank of “Chief” (he constantly refers to the ship as “my” ship), emerges; wrapped around his wrist, he has credentials that allow him access to many of the ship’s otherwise inaccessible processes. He is soon advised of how the hero caused the heroine to come out of suspended animation, but he is at a loss as to why he and the hero have come out of it. What our characters soon discover, however, is that the ship is beginning to sink into a level of mechanical dysfunction that will eventually cause it to disintegrate. Apparently some meteors had passed the ship’s shield and severely damaged the ship’s auto-control mechanisms. Attempted repairs cost the Chief his life, without his having succeeded in making everything O.K. In fear and grief, the remaining couple struggle to survive. They have the Chief’s credentials, which allows them to activate the pods, but they soon find out that only one person can be returned to suspended animation (one must stay behind to activate the controls). The remaining one is left to risk life and limb in an attempt to make the final repairs. Our hero apologizes to the heroine, and he insists (given all that he is guilty of having done to her) that he be the one to stay behind.ACT IV: At this point, I leave it to you to see the film for yourself. So far, I feel no “spoiler alert” guilt because there is nothing up to this point in the story that an experienced sci fi movie goer might not have anticipated to come next. But from here, the denouement proves very interesting and satisfying. I think of the ancients, sitting by the campfire or in their worship huts, listening to expertly told mythopoetic tales about life and the meaning of the stars; this movie is something of such an experiences for us living in the new millennium, with basic issues of human existence surfacing in white-hot adventure mode—the special effects are very good! So I think that I’ll just leave you to experience the end for yourselves. What you already know of the movie will surely not turn you off to any surprise it might still hold for you, for the journey more than the destination is the point here. Not a whole lot of would-be mythopoetic works of art these days can claim to achieve anything like that. I have long been a student of antiquity and a psychotherapist, so I fancy myself having developed some sort of “feel” for this kind of thing. Clearly, for this movie, it is the melody and not the words that will stick with you, particularly if life, death, and what to do with the time left to each one of us mortals is at all a currently abiding issue for you.Unequivocally, I can say that this film leaves many space thrills & adventure movies in the dust, providing the most common of persons something genuinely marvelous to ponder upon (at least until one breaks the spell by getting off the couch or out of bed to go to the refrigerator to get another cold beer or soda). All I can say to conclude is to thank very much all the makers of this not particularly universally heralded/yet spot-on film for their highly commendable and very well balanced—although understandably quite scientifically fanciful (but which does not violate the bounds of credible science FICTION)—efforts.

I know it's not a new movie at all - released about 8 years ago. But I've never paid attention to it until today when I just wanted to see something I've not watched before and happened to pick this one.As it turned out, this is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever watched. It tells a simple but intriguing story, unfolded on the screen with perfect acting, good pacing, and beautiful visuals.In hindsight, the movie is not short; when I was watching it, it didn't feel that way. When the movie reached its end, I was still wishing I could continue to watch more of it.The movie touches some of the most fundamental philosophical questions about humanity: Who are we? Where do we come? Where do we go? How should we live? How should we die? So on and so forth. There are other movies that are related to such questions that humanity ultimately faces, such as Interstellar. Compared to other similar movies, this one excels in its simplicity plot-wise and solid acting.However, the story is so simple that I wish the movie could have explored its moral consequences in depth. A most critical twist in the movie is the main male character making his hardest decision to make. Later, when the truth gets exposed, the movie could have done more regarding the main female character's reactions to that decision.Nevertheless, this is a most beautiful movie.