A few reviews

[Moe_Syzlak]

Passengers (2016)



This movie seems to have upset a lot of people. The marketing apparently concealed the movie's premise, which occurs in the first act of the movie and therefore, to my mind, cannot reasonably be called a spoiler. I mean, I'm all for not spoiling things for people, but so long as one isn't gratuitously giving away fun moments, discussing stuff that happens in the first act, especially when they're the movie's basic premise, isn't spoiling, IMO. That said, it can also be fun to go into a movie cold. I knew the premise going in, but I'd recommend sci-fi fans rent this knowing as little as possible.

My actual spoilery thoughts on the movie can be read here. It may not have been the most enlightened story/movie of all time, but I wasn't offended, and I'm frankly disappointed that so many online geeks have attacked it for being a big-budget sci-fi flick that dares to present a thorny moral story, and then fawn over deritivate dreck like Star Trek Beyond, in which Kirk surely loses dozens of crewmen, and a few days later is joking about how fun "flying" in space is. Well, let it be known that Passengers has more moral complexity than the three nuTrek movies combined. Also, it's a reasonably well-made space yarn. Does it depicts saints acting flawlessly? No. Does it glorify bad deeds, as some have suggested? Heck, no. Anyhow, I liked it.

B+

I haven't seen the movie, but it seemed to me the issue was with the marketing (as you stated). They marketed it as a rom com in space. Had they marketed honestly I don't think the thorny moral issues would've irked so many.