Rating: PG-13

Score: 9 out of 10

On Dec. 26, 2016, Passengers, a science fiction film starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence was released. The movie works as a thrilling, romance, adventure story set in a possible future.

In this future, Earth has become over-populated and polluted, so people are given the option to move to and colonize other habitable planets and restart their lives. The journeys to these planets can take over a century, so passengers aboard the luxurious space ships are required to spend their trip preserved in sleep chambers that keep them youthful and in good health. Well, the ship is hit by an asteroid while in space and one of the sleep chambers malfunctions and wakes an engineer, Jim Preston, played by Chris Pratt. The journey still has 90 years left, meaning he will be long dead by the time anyone else wakes up.

So, for a year, Preston tries to fix his sleep chamber, explores the ship, and spends time with an android bartender. He also struggles with the decision to wake up another passenger, Aurora Lane, a writer played by Jennifer Lawrence. Eventually he does awaken her, and for a year they spend their days happily together and fall in love. Unfortunately, she discovers that he woke her up and she refuses to talk to him for the rest of the 88 years they have left. The ship starts to experience more problems though, and the two are forced to work together to solve them, and Aurora begins to understand why Jim did what he did. They fall in love again and spend the rest of their days together happily aboard the ship.

This movie has no alien to blame, or pin as the evil in the plot. Instead the viewer is forced to think about whether Jim Preston is really the villain, and what they would do in his situation. The film asks the question, “If you were stranded on a deserted island, and you could bring one person with you, would you?” The answer is never simple and that idea is what this movie is built around.

Passengers has wonderful scenes of desperation, where we see a side of Chris Pratt’s acting that usually isn’t shown. The suspense keeps us on the edge of our seats with knots in our stomachs, and the romance is fresh and original. Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence show fantastic chemistry on the screen.

This movie didn’t go over very well with critics, but many moviegoers, myself included, couldn’t understand why. The only slight fault was that the pacing was a bit too fast, but that’s all. It had an original idea, with beautiful visuals and powerful scenes that evoked emotion from the audience. I would highly encourage people to go see Passengers, it’s a great film that can be enjoyed by anyone.