Who’s in it and what’s it about?
Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence of “The Hunger Games,” “Joy,” the “X-Men” franchise) wakes up on an enormous spaceship that’s taking thousands of would-be colonists to their destination 120 years away.
Trouble is, she’s been woken up from artificial stasis far too early and, as she discovers, so has engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Jurassic World.”)
If they can’t find out what went wrong with the spaceship then they’ll be dead well before arrival. Worse, it seems like that’s not the only thing wrong with the ship and if they don’t get it fixed they’ll be dead a lot sooner, and so will the 5,000-plus sleepers also onboard.
Michael Sheen of “The Queen” and “Tron Legacy” is the ship’s android bartender Arthur, with Laurence Fishburne (“The Matrix,” “Batman v Superman,”) Andy Garcia (“The Godfather Part III,” “Ocean’s Eleven” trilogy,)
Who’s behind it?
Director Morten Tyldum went from Norwegian box office record-breaker “Headhunters” to Academy Award winning Alan Turing biopic “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
The movie’s script surfaced in 2007 when it appeared on the Black List, an annual list of top available screenplays as voted for by Hollywood movers and shakers. Since then, scriptwriter Jon Spaihts has penned alien invasion thriller “The Darkest Hour,” provided the basis for Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” and co-wrote this year’s Marvel hit “Doctor Strange.”
Is it any good?
Unfortunately, a spate of mid-December reviews haven’t been enthusiastic about the PG-13 movie’s qualities.
Those have resulted in a 30% approval rating and an 5.2/10 average score from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes (a mere 0% and 3.7/10 from its selected Top Critics,) and a 39/100 score from Metacritic.
Not to say there weren’t positives to be taken from the film, with Lawrence and Pratt’s performances among its high points; their star power alone should help see “Passengers” some way towards box office success.
When’s it out?
A December 21 release date applies to the US and Canada, the UK and Ireland, as well as Taiwan and Vietnam; Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Indonesia, Finland, Denmark and Sweden are also part of the first week roll-out.
Others follow shortly after, such as France (December 28,) Malaysia (29th,) Spain, Italy and South Africa (30th,) with Australia and New Zealand on January 1, 2017, Brazil and Germany on January 5, India on January 6 and the Philippines on January 8.