Space odyssey burns out well before reaching its destination
Dir: Morten Tyldum With: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen Runtime: 116 minutes
AFTER starring in Morten Tyldum’s space thriller Passengers, the Welsh actor Michael Sheen revealed he was planning to give up acting and throw himself into politics.
One wonders if the two events were entirely unconnected.
Tyldum’s picture, you see, is a prime example of how a promising story set in the wild starry yonder can crash and burn, even with some of the most likeable actors in the business involved. The movies, like space, can be a dangerous place.
Dateline: far into the future. Earth now being dirty, overcrowded and on its last legs, the future lies in colonising other planets. For the price of a ticket, a bod can travel in suspended animation, waking up 120 years from now, ready to start a new life in a virgin land. Space is no longer the final frontier but a gateway to a new, pioneer lifestyle.
By virtue of being an engineer, a desired profession in the new world, Jim Preston (played by Chris Pratt) has booked his place in a cryogenic pod at a bargain price. When he is awakened from his deep sleep he is raring to go.
But hang on. Why is he up and about but no-one else is? It becomes obvious to Jim lad that something has gone terribly wrong, and he should still be sleeping. Trying everything he can think of to fix matters (remember he is an engineer), Jim realises he is alone up there, utterly alone, and since the ship still has 90 years of travelling to do, he will stay that way until the day he inevitably dies.
Well, he is not entirely alone. There is Arthur (Sheen), an android barman working in a joint straight out of The Shining. In addition, Jennifer Lawrence plays Aurora Lane, a writer from New York who wants to go to the new world, stay a year, then come home and hammer out a bestseller.
There is a promising idea explored in the early stages of the film – what would you do if you were the last human around? Ridley Scott explored the same terrain in The Martian, but Scott had three advantages over Passengers: one, he had Matt Damon as his Robinson Crusoe in space; two, he had a script with a finely tuned sense of fun; lastly, and never underestimate the power of this, Damon played some great tunes to lighten the mood while he worked on finding a solution to his plight.
Tyldum (The Imitation Game, Headhunters), working from a screenplay by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange) takes matters very seriously at first, with lots of long stretches in which Jim tours the ship doing everything alone – playing games, eating, seeing what sights are available.
It plays out like a very boring video for a cruise ship company. Matters don’t improve much when Aurora turns up. It soon becomes clear that her contribution to events consists largely of wearing either designer yoga wear or ever more revealing outfits. Eventually, even Aurora’s wardrobe fails to muster interest, such is the lack of story on screen. As if to make up for the tedium that has set in, Tyldum goes a million light years in the opposite direction, taking his tale from a low-key, introspective look at the human need for other humans, to a crash, bang, wallop space opera with all the special effects the budget can muster.
His course thus set, the picture becomes sillier and the dialogue ever more ridiculous. Had Pratt, the star of Guardians Of The Galaxy, been allowed to do his comedy thing, he might have rescued the picture from drifting off into daftness. Similarly, there is far more to Lawrence’s talents than looking good in a cocktail dress or a meshed-panel swimsuit. Both actors, however, are so tightly constrained by the script they might as well be performing in pods.
Sheen, since you ask, turns out to be the best thing in the picture, his Arthur a blend of Scotch and wry that slips down very smoothly. Acting will miss you, Mr Sheen. * Dir: David Frankel With: Keira Knightley, Will Smith Runtime: 97 minutes EVEN by the standards of Christmas movies, which rarely stint on the schmaltz, David Frankel’s wannabe tear jerker is an extravaganza of bad taste. Will Smith plays Howard, a New York ad agency boss who goes from Mad Man to Sad Man after his life takes a dreadful turn.
His partners, who include Ed Norton and Kate Winslet, opt to take drastic action to snap Howard out of his emotional coma, and by “drastic” I mean utterly unbelievable and an insult to the intelligence of an amoeba.
Contrived, annoying silly, and featuring some ripe acting from Smith, this is a Christmas movie turkey with all the starry trimmings. *** Dirs: Eric Warin, Eric Summer Voices: Elle Fanning, Dane DeHaan Runtime: 89 minutes THE title of this French animation will be catnip to a certain demographic – young, fond of a tutu, dreams of Swan Lake in their hearts. If you know someone like that, there is pleasure to be had from the tale of Felicie who flees with her friend, Victor, from an orphanage in the sticks to Paris.
The story is all over the shop in terms of language and costume, with the likes of denim shorts and Americanisms finding their way into 1879 Paris, and there is a horribly cheesy soundtrack complete with warbling about fulfilling your dreams, etc. But hey, there are tutus.