Rated PG-13
Running time: 1 hr 34 mins
Cast:
N/A
Mikey @ The Movies Official Rating:
0 out of *****
The Premise:
A grief counselor working with a group of plane-crash survivors finds herself at the root of a mystery when her clients begin to disappear.
MY REVIEW
I'll give it this much, Passangers does not fall into the dissapointing catergory. Probably because I didn't see the preview or know much about the movie before I walked into the theater to see it. However, Passangers does in fact fall into the catergory of "some of the worst garbage or the year". Now that I've seen the trailer for the film (which you can watch below) I am slightly angry at the movie. The preview totally makes this movie out to be some intense thriller of some other wordly proportion. Really it isn't that.
The first fifteen minutes of the movie or so paints the picture for the story we think we are going to see. It starts off with the plane crashing, a few people survive and now they are being treated by a therapist played by Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, Get Smart). All of them have different stories about what happened on the plane, and they all seem to be a bit mysterious themselves. Especially the one who doesn't want to be a part of the group sessions, a man played by Patrick Wilson (Hard Candy, The Alamo). He is the most mysterious of them all, he seems to know what Hathaways character is physically thinking. He knows things about her he should not know. So now we are led to believe he has gained some psychic powers. Mind you, this all happens in the first 15-20 minutes.
The next 45 mintues to an hour the film completely takes a different course. It turns into a sappy love story between the two main characters. The therapist struggles with falling for a patient, but she does so anyway. They have some lovely times together such as swimming in a freezing cold body of water, or having an intimate conversation on a rooftop. All of this is accompanied by a welcoming and charming musical score that just makes us all warm and happy inside. Occasionally the movie throws in some of the airplane mystery. A character from the airline company played by David Morse (Disturbia, 16 Blocks) pops up every once in a while in a sinister way telling Hathaway to back off. Then some thrilling music pops in to make us "tense" and then immediately back to the lovey dovey stuff.
This goes on for a while then the last 10 or 15 minutes the big twise comes into play. Honestly, you can see most of the twist coming from the first few minutes of the movie and just by looking at the freaking poster for the movie. The other part of the twist, the really big part I honestly did not see coming but at the same time I was not suprised. I was angry. There was no reason for us to ever even think this part of the twist would happen. I guess you can say, "Well Mike doesn't that make it a good, successful twist then?" The answer is no. In movies with twists, they drop subtle hints, and have backup for us to go "Ooooh Ok!" but this movie didn't. Here's my theory:
The filmakers forgot what the movie was about. They got so wrapped up in the silly love story they forgot they were making a mystery thriller about plane crash survivors. Once they realized how far off course they were, they had to film some fill in scenes to keep their original story in tact. Then they filmed this ending as a way of just lazily wrapping everything up. That's what the ending was: lazy. When in doubt...just end your movie this way.
Passangers is by far one of the worst film's of 2008 and should not be seen by anyone with a brain. This movie uses audiences. Uses them and abuses them. You probably haven't even heard of this movie. Critics sure haven't. Rotten Tomatoes has only 4 reviews posted as of today (10/27). When the critics haven't even seen it, and only 1 of the 4 liked it, you know you have a really bad movie. And that is what Passengers is: A really disgustingly awful motion picture.
Do NOT see Passengers. It wreaks of terribleness. If that's even a word.
To view this film's theatrical trailer, click this link: Passengers
*This is the 138th new film I've seen and reviewed this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment