I often wonder at what point does an actor realize he or she is in a historically bad movie.  I think Ben Affleck thought Batman v Superman was legitimately a banger until he saw the Rotten Tomatoes score plummet to the depths of Mar-A-Lago upon release.  I think Bradley Cooper thought Aloha was good until he saw the discombobulate mess for the first time at the premier.  I’m guessing Michael B. Jordan had an inkling Fantastic Four was gonna suck when the director got fired halfway through filming.  And I bet Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt knew Passengers would be a disaster before they even signed on the dotted line ($20 million for J-Law, $12 million for Pratt).

A giant payday is the only reason Lawrence and Pratt would have ever done this movie. Nothing wrong with that, they should “keep gettin dem checks,” but this story makes no goddamn sense. No level of cast pedigree could save this movie the way it’s constructed.  I really don’t know what Sony was thinking.  I guess they assumed Lawrence + Pratt + Space = $$$$$$$ script be damned, but they were wrong (the domestic box office came up $10 million short of production costs, not even factoring in marketing).

(Slight spoilers below, but this isn’t a good movie so I wouldn’t worry about it)

The tone of Passengers is composed as a love story however the actual actions of the characters are better suited for a horror movie.  Pratt in particular, pretty much a human golden retriever in all of his past roles, somehow comes off as unlikeable and even creepy which is a feet in and of itself.  He dupes Lawrence into falling in love with him using some very insidious tactics, yet the films treats it as “eh nbd.”  This isn’t like Renee Zellweger forgiving Tom Cruise at the end of Jerry Maguire.  This would be like if at the end of Misery, James Caan decided he was in love with Kathy Bates and decided to stay holed up with her.  Grade: D