Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Passengers

(2016)

It’s a pretty horrible situation. There’s a colony spaceship on its way to another star with 5,000 people in cold storage. But there is a malfunction and one of them is revived, while still 90 years from the destination. It’s impossible to go back in the deep freeze (which seems implausible, but is necessary to the plot). After a year with no one to talk to but a robot bartender, he wakes a woman, and tells her it was another glitch in the computer. Eventually she discovers the lie. How can she react to that? She had naturally been close to the guy. I mean, what else is there to do? The movie really should be about the morality of the man’s decision, but it bogs down in another plot about the ship being in danger of coming apart. To no one’s surprise, they end up loving each other and living together for the next 90 years. Really, very little of this worked for me.

I have to mention that I learned that Jennifer Lawrence is now pulling down $20 million per picture! She’s good, but is she that good?