The trailer (see below) for sci-fi space odyssey, Passengers (2016), did a very good job of setting things up for an impressive release, starting out with what looks like the perfect outer-space romance before stripping away the layers. The gloss slowly peels back to reveal the dire straights of the situation as it becomes clear that it’s not the the spaceship rom-com it appears to be in the opening thirty seconds or so.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, it had the potential to be 2016’s equivalent to The Martian, with elements of Interstellar., and while it doesn’t quite reach the same heady heights, it still managed to capture a lot of imaginations. With space flight in its infancy in our own modern-day, but with more and more projects looking to tap into the concept of space tourism, the sci-fi disaster movie was well placed to ask what happens when it all goes wrong.
Release date
Cinema:
Passengers (2016) had its UK release date on Wednesday the 21st December 2016, just a little after its US release on the 21st. With so many sci-fi visuals to admire, it’s understandable that it will be available in 3D, but looking at the trailer below, we’re not convinced you will have lost all that much impact if you opted for a 2D viewing.
It arrived on a fairly quiet box office weekend in the UK, with very little getting released at the same time. However, the fact that Star Wars: Rogue One was only in its second weekend at the cinemas overshadowed the arrival of Passengers a little.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital download:
If you missed it on the big screen, or you’re just looking to add the film to your home entertainment collection, the UK DVD release date has been confirmed for the 8th May 2017. It’ll also be available on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, 4K and digital download.
Story
The plot is set in the distant future on a huge spaceship set to transport thousands of people on a 120-year voyage to a human colony far from Earth. When a malfunction causes two of the stasis pods to open prematurely with another ninety years to go, its inhabitants find themselves thrown together with no way of going back into hibernation, forcing them to try to make the best of a bad situation.
Romance seems to be on the cards, but the difficult circumstances to come to terms with turns out to be the last of their worries as the ship’s malfunction seems to be more significant than just their pods opening. By the end of the trailer it all looks pretty tense for the two star-crossed lovers and the rest of the sleeping travellers.
Passengers (2016) film trailer:
Cast
Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: Apocalypse) and Chris Pratt (Guardians Of The Galaxy 2) play the two stranded travellers, Aurora and Jim, and they’re joined on the short cast list by Michael Sheen (Alice Through The Looking Glass), who plays a robotic bartender, who looks as though he’s got his own malfunction to deal with. There’s no sign of them in the trailer, but Laurence Fishburne (John Wick Chapter 2) and Andy Garcia (Ghostbusters (2016)) have also been cast.
Age rating
Passengers has been given an age rating of 12A in the UK by the British Board Of Film Classification with “moderate threat, brief injury detail, and sexual activity”. Check out the trailer below to see what to expect from the film.
Production
Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) has directed the film from a screenplay written by Jon Spaihts (Doctor Strange). Neal H. Moritz, Stephen Hamel, Michael Maher and Ori Marmur produced the movie and David Householter, Ben Browning, Jon Spaihts, Lynwood Spinks, Bruce Berman, Greg Basser and Ben Waisbren are down as executive producers.
First impressions
The trailer for Passengers (2016) has done a very good job of building the expectation for the film and if the culmination of the trapped-in-space setup can live up to that then it should be a decent new sci-fi adventure. Both Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt have put in some good performances on the big screen in recent years and we’re hoping it’s another smash to add to their impressive tally.
It’s also going to be fun watching Michael Sheen’s robotic bartender character slowly unravelling as the film builds in tension. If that isn’t enough to convince us, there’s also the stunning sci-fi visuals to look forward to, along with the mystery of what’s behind the impending disaster, which should be enough to make this one of the big movie releases of December 2016 alongside Rogue One. You can follow the latest on the film on the official Twitter page, as well as on Chris Pratt’s.
