PASSENGERS - Review

Billed as a Space Romance starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence as Jim Preston and Aurora Lane, from an original black listed script by Jon Spaihts, which meant this should’ve been a good, thought provoking film, and having the Director of the Excellent, The Imitation Game should’ve been the ace in the hole. The final product, whilst entertaining and visually outstanding received some harsh words from critics.  The Film follows Jim Preston, one the 5000 Passengers aboard the Starship Avalon who woke up 90 Years too soon in the Ship’s 120 Years cruise to a new human colony in a new galaxy. 

The Film opens with the uniquely designed Starship Avalon zooming across a star field and then through an asteroid field, but thankfully, the ship has a shield to take care of those potato shaped rocks, despite having no crews on the steering wheel. It was a little unnerving to see the ship sterile emptiness, kudos to the Production Design Team for managing to create such impressive interior for this spaceship, despite its rather strange almost Kryptonian style exterior. It’s soon established that Avalon is in the middle of a 120 Years cruise to a planet called Homestead II where its 5000 passengers are to be the first settlers of the uninhabited planet. Not only is the planet uninhabited, it’s owned by the Homestead Corporation, and guess what? The Planet turned out to be one of many Planets the Corporation owned! Kudos to Screenwriter Jon Spaihts for creating an interesting vision of the future. 

Things started to go wrong aboard The Avalon, after the ship cleared off the Asteroid Field (and everything automatically fixed themselves) when one of the Pod malfunctioned, waking up its inhabitant Jim Preston 90 Years too soon. The scenes where Jim searched the ship for fellow humans through the deserted pristine corridor brought to mind 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead (minus the garbage and debris). It didn’t take long for Jim to figure out that he’s an early riser, and that everybody else would sleep for 90 Years more in their pod. Being an optimist, Jim tried to make the best of his situation, following advice from Android Bartender from The Shining-like Bar, Arthur to “live a little”. Moving himself to a VIP Suite, playing basketballs, dance dance revolution (holo?) game (Clever reference to Peter Quill), and dramatic spacewalks. He also attempted to break into the Crew Quarters to try and wake up the crew to no avail, thanks to the heavily secured door.  However after a Year of being alone, Jim started to lose his mind and contemplated suicide by throwing himself out to space. It is this dark aspect that is unfortunately, the Filmmakers chose not to explore. Instead, they opt to continue to make Jim the nice optimist he is at the start. 

Jim met Aurora after his botched suicide and immediately regained his old swagger as he browsed through Aurora’s Interviews. In a creepy, (but presented as cute) scene, he watches Aurora’s interview, while sitting next to her Hibernation Pod and eating crisps. Naturally, the video recordings aren’t enough and Jim soon faced a dilemma : Should he wake Aurora and doomed her to a lifetime on the ship with him, or let her stay in her pod and continue with her life? This being a Movie, there’s no doubt which scenario ended up on the Screen. He woke her up, and lied about it.  Initially distraught, Aurora soon accepted her situation and initiated a relationship with Jim, which probably doesn’t seem like a bad deal (he’s nice, he’s hot) considering it was some form of Stockholm Syndrome.  She had no choice. But thanks to the leads performance, this subtext might be forgivable to some. 

Of course, Jim’s lie was soon uncovered, just moments before he’s due to propose to Aurora via Arthur’s revelation. Aurora’s distraught at the truth was understandable, she’s stuck on the ship for 90 years, with the Man she now hates. But, ever the Optimist, Jim continually attempted to make it up to her by taking over the Ship’s P.A System to apologise to her, justifying his action. This is film’s critical point. By this point, the filmmakers could go the horror route by having Jim, twisted by his period of solitude go all Jack Torrance on Aurora or down the road they went to, by introducing a new Character, Gus (Laurence Fishburne) the Ship’s Deck Manager and problems with the Avalon that only Jim and Aurora can fix by working together. Thus the Film kept to the Sci-Fi Romance it marketed itself to be.

Passengers is not a perfect film, its flawed and its plot points problematic to some people, but this is not a film made for discussion, or deep analysis, it’s a popcorn film. Of course the Guy and the Girl end up together, of course the Girl forgives the Guy. Yes, there is a darker, scarier version of the Film that the Filmmakers could’ve made, but they didn’t. It is a shame that they didn’t go with that version, but that doesn’t make this film any less enjoyable. At least it’s not one of the Transformers sequel.

ARRIVAL - Review

Arrival is a 2016 Science Fiction Film directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) and written by Eric Heisserer based on “A Story of your Life” by Ted Chiang. It follows Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), a Lingustic Expert and Physicists, to initiate first contact with one of the 12 Alien Crafts that mysteriously appeared around the globe. A tense sci fi, drama thriller in the vein of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Arrival took the First Contact idea and turned it into a drama about predestinations and the importance of communication.

The film’s first important theme is the importance of communication. This is first highlighted during Louise’s first arrival to the Montana Base, where one of the 12 alien craft had landed (dubbed “The Shells”). Multiple Screens are visible showing live feeds from 11 other Sites around the World. A connection that will later revealed to be the key in decoding the alien’s message. Louise’s objective is to find out the Heptapod’s (the name given to the Aliens on account of their seven legs) purpose on Earth.  To achieve the objective, Louise uses her linguistic expertise to teach the Heptapod how to communicate, to the annoyance of her military superiors who wanted nothing but quick results. Louise argued that it is necessary to teach the Heptapods the basic concepts of the Human language to ensure no miscommunication between the two races that might lead to war.  Later China’s misinterpretation of the Heptapod’s message (“Use Weapon”) led to China breaking off communication with the World, followed by the other 10 Nations involved. Believing the Heptapod’s to be hostile, China declared war on the Heptapods and urged the other nations to do the same. At the Montana base, several soldiers, swayed by the rant of a provocateur mounted a plan to bomb the Heptapod’s shell, managing to kill one of them.  Louise attempted to convince her Military Superiors that the Heptapod’s message may be benign and that their concept of Weapon could refer to something else (Knowledge, Technology, etc..). and that to solve the true meaning of the message all 12 Sites around the world should work together.  At the film’s denouement it is revealed that the Heptapod’s does indeed intend to unite the human race to work together, understanding the “Weapon” they’re offering : Their Language.  At one point in the film’s second act, Louise herself said to her Military superiors that, “Language is the first weapon drawn in a conflict”.

The film’s theme of Inevitability and its true heart is stated explicitly in its first 5 minutes. The film opens with a montage showing our Protagonist, Loise Banks (played by Amy Adams) and her daughter, Hannah. The montage quickly goes through Hannah’s birth, and ending with Hannah’s death.  The early years, covering Hannah’s childhood were shot in warm, dreamy, handheld cinematography reminiscent of the Smallville’s sequences in Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel. The dreamy cinematography and warm, golden colour grading conveys both the sense of joy and hints at the true nature of the sequence. However, by scoring the scene with Max Richter’s On The Nature Of Daylight a sense of loss and melancholy are present, and thus the sequence becomes a beacon in the dark, happiness recalled by someone in despair (or maybe this Reviewer was reminded by the effective application of the same Max Richter’s Music for the dream sequence in Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island). The Montage ends with Hannah lying lifeless in a hospital room, her head completely shaven, hinting at the disease that killed her (it was never explicitly named).  Through the montage, director Denis Villeneuve brilliantly depicts how death is inevitable, pain unavoidable in life and love, and prepared the film’s big question : “If you could see your whole life played out in front of you, would you go with it, or would you change it?”. Through her understanding of the Heptapod’s non-linear language, Louise also gained an ability to see the future, specifically her daughter, Hannah who has yet to be born out of her future relationship with her colleague, Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). The Glimpses into this future informed the audience that Louise and Ian had a daughter and that at some point they would separate, leaving Louise to raise Hannah herself, and that Louise’s foreknowledge of Hannah’s death is what ended her marriage to Ian. Yet despite knowing where her life would lead, Louise decided not to change a thing. 

Arrival is a brilliant sci-fi drama film, with strong cast, strong cinematography, convincing visual effects, and an important message for humans, as both an individual or a member of an entire race. A reminder that death, life, pain, love, grief, joy are inevitable aspects of being human, and that we should all work together to create a better world, because no matter where you are, which flags you salute, whatever language you speak, this is our world. 

Hello Again

Hello everyone, it's been a while and I do mean a while. Two years just flashed by *snap fingers* like that. Anyway, since it was part of my 2017's resolution to again, post my thoughts on the latest releases at the Cineplex, and maybe I'll finally post some of my own works as well.

Anyway what a year 2016 has been right? So many lessons learned, so much changes, both good and bad. So here's hoping that 2017 will go down as one of the better ones, eh? *fingers crossed*

- Adi Wijananda