Passengers is a 2016 film by Sony that stars Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. Depending on the preview I saw before it was released, it either came across as a sci-fi adventure or a love story that happened to be set in space. My wife and I recently saw the movie on a date night and it turns out that it was a little of both. I'd say a little more focused on the love story than adventure.

Pratt plays "James Preston" or "Jim" as he quickly corrects one of the ship's many computers that calls him James. Jim and thousands of "Passengers" are in hibernation on a large space vessel that is on a 100 or so year journey to a new colony. The movie begins with Jim and only Jim somehow waking up. Waking up way too early. To me, the mix of emotions that Jim goes through after waking up is one of the best parts of the movie. There is a good mix of surprise, panic, anger, depression and even several comedic moments to keep it mixed up.

I'm a 30 year old mechanical engineer and I was pleasantly surprised when Chris Pratt's character was also a mechanical engineer. One gripe I have is that he is later repeated referred to as a "mechanic" rather than engineer. As an engineer, I enjoyed seeing Jim build, fix, modify and attempt to destroy several things with a wide range of tools.

Anyone who has seen the previews will know, that for reasons I won't spoil here, Jennifer Lawrence's character "Aurora Lane" also wakes up way too early. After she goes through a similar initial range of emotions like Jim did, she begins to accept the situation. Needless to say, here is when the love aspect of the movie turns up and a lot of guys like me may tune out at times. As I was losing a little interest, my wife was starting to get into the film even more. The chemistry between Pratt and Lawrence was quite good. I did find a few of the romantic moments to be a little stiff or corny but my wife didn't so I'm probably just being critical. Overall, their chemistry is very watchable whoever you may be.

After the mid part of the movie develops their relationship, the final act is where the main part of the action is. The reason the hibernation pods malfunctioned is becoming more and more clear. Again, without giving away anything too critical, they have to scramble to fix the ship before they're stranded in space or worse. As seen in some previews, there is a gravity loss while Aurora is swimming. Here I found myself trying to hold my breath for as long as she was having too.

As in the beginning, Pratt gets to demonstrate more of his character's mechanical skills. This time they were to keep the ship from exploding and killing the thousands of other passengers who were still sleeping. Jim and Aurora share a good balance of teamwork in their fight to save the day. The end did keep you guessing until well, the end. There were a couple final little twists so I didn't have the entire plot figured out 10 minutes before it happened. No big surprises or revelations but enough mystery to keep me interested.
(Movie poster with Lawrence and Pratt)

Overall, this was a good date movie. It kept an engineer and a nurse entertained for a couple hours and made for a pleasant evening. It's not going to sweep the Oscars but I'd say it's an above average film. I'm very critical of movies and won't watch ones I get bored with. The previews kind of made me look for more of a dark secret or conspiracy behind the scenes but this wasn't the case. Again, Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence did good work. Passengers is worth seeing.