In this inner space Castaway plus amenities and friendly Roombas, Chris Pratt questions his existence, debriefs with android mentor bartender, and hits it off with Jennifer Lawrence as we all knew he would. But when playful romp turns harrowing mission who knows if their young love can withstand the pain of possible death and betrayal.
They are simply two awake too early on a human transport spaceship headed to a new world to make a new life.
This film proves that even if Tom Hanks had had access to a deli, matches, and a million flashlight batteries he still most likely would have met and befriended Wilson the volleyball and attempted suicide.
Jennifer Lawrence looks beautiful, rarely a flyaway hair out of place, and is barely allowed to ugly-cry. Pratt reenacts a few Martian-esque sequences, bearded and naked on-board the Homestead II.
Passengers is exactly what you expect it to be: big effects with big name stars on the big screen. Maybe it’s kind of nice to leave the theater feeling nothing. After La La Land, you may need the emotional respite.
As a magnet for mutant power, he gains control of all. Believing he is a god, his thirst for ultimate dominance forces an 80’s Care Bear stare-down in yet another civil-war type super-battle. 
McAvoy charms. Fassbender feels. Jennifer Lawrence glows.
Top game for many seasoned pros now surrounded by debut newbies who work equally as hard to show off their powers and prove their places in the legendary Marvel universe.
The 80’s can actually be a tough period to pull off in a film. It’s easy to slip too far down the rabbit hole of crimped bangs, fingerless gloves, fishnets and hightops. Add leather strappy boots and reference Coca-cola, and I guess you’re half-way there. The filmmakers also often made it feel like an 80’s sitcom’s Christmas episode rife with flashbacks of famous favorite family moments.
Sadly this X installment is more promise than payoff, more flashback than Flashdance. A few glaring missteps:
The tagline is “Only the strong will survive.” Perhaps they meant the fans.
The Silver Linings director offers real-to-life hand-cam perspectives, inside scoops, and deliciously complex…cartoon characters. Almost caricatures. We love them for their hearts mired deep in the muck of their flaws. We love them because we don’t know them. We get to watch the ditches they dig fill up with possibilities. They have potential and they win on some level, so we go back in for another dose as soon as he releases one.
Joy begins perfectly. Set up, character development, story, buy in and build. The soap opera scenes stand alone as genius.
We wait for payoff …until the very end, but by then we are tired and older because it is a long movie.
War inevitably results in collateral damage. Legs, arms, minds, whole lives forfeited while the opposition resets and plans next moves. Desperate times force characters to choose allegiances, values, alliances. Gamemakers reset within the city walls. None are safe. The victor hero and spokesperson, Katniss Everdeen, remains the ugly-crying face of the rebellion carrying her personal vendetta against President Snow up the steps of the Capitol. Leading rebels in civil war proves more difficult post Peeta’s mind meld with Snow. Battle rages. Mine fields are set. With every step, detonation or success?
No more showstopping costumes aflame, no more fake romance drama and lies, no more appeasing the Capitol viewers in the old ways. Or so they think. All is televised, all is heresay and henchmen. Faceless guards rack up the body count while Districts unite to attack one final time.
It’s all difficult to watch. I struggle through war films, question everything. I wonder, when do we audience members become like the Capitol? When does a well made film turn viewer into voyeur?
Katniss defends. She has killed, but is she a killer? Motives muddle. Pressure mounts and armies assemble. When is a single life expendable? In war, do the rules of morality change? When do soldiers forget that war is not a game?
Some would say these are just movies. Action and sci-fi adventure. Drama and a nice blend of peace and romance amidst explosions and chaos. In my opinion, these are not simply films. They are not made for entertainment alone. They cannot be. They are perhaps cautionary tales. Story and history mimic and repeat, ebb and flow. We pray the world will never repeat in history this story of Panem.
Splatter: on FILM 