Passengers

Remember last year’s Passengers? The Titanic-in-space sci-fi romance that ended up derailing into a creepy stalker-y mess within its first 20 minutes? Well, Jennifer Lawrence, fortunately, Gets It, although she won’t say that the film wasn’t a success.

In an alternate timeline, perhaps one in which we didn’t elect a reality TV star as president, there exists a different version of Passengers — one that directly and artfully addresses the dubious morality of its male lead. That version is directed by Ruben Ostlund, the Swedish filmmaker behind the brilliant, darkly comedic relationship drama Force Majeure. This alternate version of Passengers probably wouldn’t star Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, either; or if it did, it would have possibly given them much more compelling material to work with.

Have you ever seen those movie ads on TV filled with gushing quotes from critics and thought to yourself, “I saw that movie; it was terrible. Where did they find these positive reviews?” If you have, you’re not alone — and you’re going to love ScreenCrush’s newest series, Critics Are Raving, which balances the cinematic scales with trailers full of slightly more accurate (and slightly more negative) lines from reviews. Real critics. Real quotes. Really bad movies. That’s what’s Critics Are Raving is all about.

We need to talk about Passengers. The new Sony film from director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) and screenwriter Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange) stars Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence as two people who fall in love in space. But this space romance isn’t as innocent as it sounds.

In Morten Tyldum’s Passengers, Chris Pratt’s Jim and Jennifer Lawrence’s Aurora Lane are the only passengers on a spaceship who wake up 90 years too soon. Alone and stranded in space, Aurora and Jim go on dinner dates, take late night dips in the pool, and quickly fall in love. Sounds sweet, huh? Just look at the film’s marketing, in which Pratt adoringly gazes at the woman he loves. But Passengers has a much creepier and troubling premise buried beneath the veneer of a love story. Once you realize the film’s “twist,” those publicity photos reveal Pratt’s character for the creep he really is.

It has long been a fine American tradition to escape the awkward enclosure of your parents’ house over your holiday vacation and spend a few hours in the local movie theater, where everyone can shut up about politics and stop swapping passive aggressive comments on each other’s lifestyle for a few hours. 2016 was no different, with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Sing drawing in the big crowds while La La Land and Fences impressed in limited release. Not so impressive: Passengers, Why Him?, and Assassin’s Creed, each of which underperformed.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the not-quite-twist at the center of this month’s sci-fi romance Passengers. It’s gotten a lot of attention, and people aren’t happy. If you’ve only seen the trailers, you’ve seen the “Titanic in space” aspects of the film, but there’s actually a lot more to it, and not in a good way. Director Morten Tyldum and writer Jon Spaihts have finally addressed the reason why they decided to keep that one controversial plot point in the film, but it might be too little too late. If you haven’t heard anything about this, or if you’d rather go into the movie knowing as little as possible, it’d be a good idea to turn back now, because there are SPOILERS ahead.

You probably know that Jennifer Lawrence inherited the role of Mystique in the X-Men movies from Rebecca Romijn. But did you know that the elaborate makeup process required to turn Lawrence into a scaly blue mutant used to take eight hours...

Imagine, you’ve given up your life on Earth, paid a ton of money to take a 120-year-long nap, and when you wake up you won’t have aged a day and will be starting over on a brand new planet. Now imagine something goes wrong and you accidentally wake up early. You’re stuck on a ship that can’t return to Earth and won’t reach its destination before you die. What do you do?

You’ve got two of the world’s biggest movie stars, a sci-fi, romance hybrid, and a release date right in time for the holiday season. A perfect recipe for success, yes? So it would seem for the new Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt-led Passengers. Yet with every new trailer, I’m getting increasingly convinced that Sony has no idea what to do with this film or how to market it. The third trailer was released online today, and dear lord in space heaven, it is bad.