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Passengers

(2008)
Warning: Im going to spoil the fudge out of this movie
I was cajoled into this movie by a co-worker who liked it, but to be honest it wasnt all that tough a sell because I like looking at Anne Hathaway (though I have my limits, I will not see Bride Wars) and I am positively disposed toward Patrick Wilson based on his fine work in Watchmen. Hathaway plays a nervous psychologist (which she seems a little young for) who is called in to counsel the survivors of a terrible place crash who seem to have differing accounts of what happened. Wilson plays Eric, a survivor whose euphoric response to making it through the crash feels suspiciously hollow. Andre Braugher (for whom I will always retain a fondness thanks to Homicide: Life on the Streets) gets to glower around in the background as Clairs supervisor, Perry, and David Morse, whos been terrorizing viewers in minor roles at least as far back as Twelve Monkeys but whos never really broken out into major villainy so far, gets to once again menace the cast in a shadowy, unexplained way as an airline representative who suspects Claire is trying to manipulate the survivors memories into a lawsuit against the airline. The bulk of this movie is reasonably well done if shoddily explained, though Claires budding romance with Eric doesnt really work you see the script going through the motions, but you dont feel any attraction or heat and I was mildly engaged up until a little past halfway, when the movie spills its beans and spoils itself. Remember The Sixth Sense? I try not to, because I find it a boring-ass film. But remember the scene where Bruce Willis meets his wife for dinner at a restaurant and she doesnt talk to him and the movie wants you to think shes mad at him, but I sat there thinking, she doesnt see him, hes dead, and so I sat there for another eternity-feeling ninety minutes or so while the film caught up to my realization, and everyone else gasped, but it was so obvious that come on, folks. Well, same thing happens here, they try to be clever but they blunder like a drunk in the dark and spill the beans and holy crap, its the exact same twist as The Sixth Sense, which only ninety per cent of the world saw. If youre gonna steal from another movie, at least try to make it one thats thirty years old or some obscure French film, not a movie your entire demographic owns a copy of. And so I had to watch the actors go through the motions waiting, waiting, waiting ah, they get it now too, finally. Still, I got to watch Anne Hathaway, so it wasnt all bad. And now you dont need to watch it, or The Sixth Sense, and if I can prevent someone from suffering through that movie, then Ive done some good on this earth. This film? Eh, take it or leave it, its better than some, worse than others, you wont miss anything not seeing it but its not time wasted. Much. October 12, 2013

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