These ‘Passengers’ are lost in space

Imagine being trapped on a spaceship with only your lover and a robot bartender for nearly a century — there isn't a spaceship big enough or a bar that well-stocked to make that sound appealing. This is the issue at the center of the ostensibly "romantic" sci-fi drama "Passengers," directed by Morten Tyldum from a script by Jon Spaihts.

While romance is the intended effect, the film's real premise is imbued with some seriously creepy undercurrents about bodily autonomy, consent and stalking. Instead of turning it into a horror movie, these issues are all breezily glossed over with the sex appeal of stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt.

The spaceship is the Avalon, 30 years into a 120-year autopilot journey to the planet colony Homestead II with 5,000 passengers on board, encased in pods that keep them in a state of suspended animation. The pod of Jim Preston (Pratt) malfunctions after a meteor hits, and he wakes up a full 90 years early. The ship remains frustratingly on autopilot, and no amount of helpful robots can put Jim back into suspended animation. The pods never fail, they claim.

Unable to engineer himself back into suspended animation, Jim partakes of the lavish accommodations the ship has to offer, which all grow tiresome after a year. He descends into a drunken, pants-less, suicidal depression, until he spots the lithe figure of Aurora Lane (Lawrence) in her pod, and develops a crush.

Though he wrestles with the decision, he ultimately decides to wake up his dream girl, effectively dooming her to a life and death aboard this spaceship. But before then, he's the only available guy around to date, and they fall in love. Until Aurora finds out about what Jim did, and is justifiably enraged

The quandary of being stuck on a spaceship with only your ex and a robot bartender (Michael Sheen) is quickly tossed aside for the high stakes action as the ship starts to malfunction. As they try to troubleshoot the ship, the film takes on the tenor of a very high-stakes version of yelling at an iPad or trying to bypass an automated phone menu.

Ultimately, the movie eschews its intriguing premise to focus on sexy space fun times, turning Jim's morally reprehensible choice into a meet cute, and a love story for the ages.

This story was originally published December 21, 2016 at 12:57 PM with the headline "These ‘Passengers’ are lost in space."