Despite a cool idea and the combined star power of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, Passengers seems poised to be a critical failure.
The early reviews are in, and it’s not looking good for the hotly anticipated Lawrence-Pratt team-up.
Passengers, which takes place aboard a long-distance space craft and follows two strangers who wake up from cryo sleep 90 years too early, hits theaters on December 21 — but if the critics are to be believed, you better start lowering your expectations now.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the Morten Tyldum-directed movie is currently at 33%, with top critics giving it a scalding 7%.
Related: Chris Pratt is cropping Jennifer Lawrence out of all his Passengers press tour photos
The overall consensus from critics appears to be that the movie lacks depth and heart, side-stepping all the potentially interesting conflicts and creating massive plot holes, all in order to focus on a central romance that ultimately falls flat.
Several critics use the analogy of the big, empty space ship the characters are trapped on to describe the hollow feeling of the movie itself, evidently disappointed with both the lead actors’ performances and The Imitation Game director’s grasp on the ambitious story.
‘Passengers’: What the critics are saying
According to Roger Ebert critic Glenn Kenny, Passengers “hits the most predictable beats while hammering its way to a conclusion that’s as egregiously contrived and corny as it is predictable.”
The chemistry of Pratt and Lawrence, while a big selling point on paper, has been similarly slammed by early reviews, with the words “empty,” “sterile” and “predictable” ultimately painting a very dull picture indeed.
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times calls the movie “sweet but inconsequential at best,” with Tribune News Service’s Katie Walsh lamenting the fact that Passengers‘ “intriguing premise” was ultimately abandoned “to focus on sexy space fun times” — that seem like they’re not all that fun.
The reviews aren’t all bad though: Empire’s James Dyer deems it “Titanic amongst the stars,” giving it a 4/5 rating, evidently choosing to focus on the movie’s romantic story as opposed to the sci-fi setting.
But ultimately, the consensus is that this ambitious movie fails to live up to its potential, with reviewers expressing their disappointment with the lack of chemistry between the leads, as well as the giant plot holes that Passengers glosses over.
Writing for The Guardian, Wendy Ide concludes, “Neither the rapport between Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt nor the impressive effects can quite redeem this shallow sci-fi.”
Vulture does allow that the movie is “an intriguing space romance,” that is ultimately “sunk by its ending” — so maybe if we just walk out 10 minutes early, we’ll love it? ?