★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
‘Infinite space, infinite terror’ screamed the poster for Paul
W.S. Anderson’s cult sci-fi horror, Event
Horizon. Whilst the endless void has supplied many a horrifying antagonist,
Morten Tyldum’s new film offers neither acid-bleeding monsters nor iron-fisted
galactic empires, but the simple passage of time. Chris Pratt stars as engineer
Jim Preston, one of five-thousand passengers (roll credits) of the starship
Avalon, your bog-standard ark-in-space vessel designed somewhere between a wind
turbine and the Endurance ship from Interstellar,
with the constant malfunctions of the TARDIS. One of these glitches raises Jim
too early from a hypersleep to which he cannot return, leaving him with 90
years alone, and long dead before the Avalon reaches its destination.
After a year spent luxuriating in the more premium areas of
the ship and pondering his plight with Michael Sheen’s legless robo-barman (see
what they did there?), Jim forcibly awakens fellow passenger Aurora (Jennifer
Lawrence) for company, knowing full well that he is denying her a future. The
question soon becomes a matter of what will shatter the couple’s serene sham of
a relationship first: Jim’s conscience or the multitude of problems plaguing
the ship?
That all sounds very complex, but, essentially, it’s two
very attractive people on a very attractive spaceship living a very attractive lifestyle
surrounded by very attractive production design, backed by a very attractive
score. Any intriguing or (god forbid) challenging ideas raised by the
undeniably creepy premise are soon buried beneath the super-shiny surface. It’s
a shame, because Tyldum’s dealt with somewhat subversive material before (the
outright nastiness of Headhunters and
the more morally difficult areas of The
Imitation Game) and come out on top, but Jon Spaiht’s (The Darkest Hour, Prometheus, Doctor Strange) script is far more
interested in warping the continuum into a linear, goes-down-well-with-popcorn
narrative.
Now, I'm as happy as anybody to watch Pratt and Lawrence swanning around ludicrously pretty sets, going on space walks and going on dates to see Michael Sheen and his best smile, but, let’s be honest, both of them could have done this in their
sleep: he’s very good at looking a bit smug and cuddly, she’s very good at
crying in despair. By the film's very nature as multiplex fodder, there's no need for either to do much besides 'be themselves, but in space'.
And yet, I still feel a little let down by both, Pratt in particular. I’d really love to see what he could do with something
outside his recently acquired comfort zone (heaven knows he's talented enough), but once again I’ve been left
wanting. The first third of the movie is Jim by himself doing a fairly
agreeable impression of Bruce Dern in Silent
Running, and just when things are looking suitably grim, Passengers wimps out (much like the saccharine direction Trumbull’s film took, minus much of the grace), and Jim’s
obsession with Aurora is played for an ‘aww’, not an ‘eww’. Just when you think
a discussion on male entitlement or the definition of murder is rearing up, it
cowers instead. I suppose the fact I’m even considering such topics with regard
to ultimately fluffy popcorn fare shows there is more to it, but (as a friend I saw it with pointed out), that’s
more to do with my own reading of the text than the film’s attempt to display
those issues.
So, if it’s no good as a moral treatise, does it work as a
cheerful holiday sci-fi? Well, the special effect set pieces are nicely exciting and the climax
survives with minimal eye-rolling sentimentality, but a top-notch Thomas Newman
score aside, there’s nothing that original
going on, with many sequences feeling like half-hearted impressions of better
movies. In a serious error of judgement, Tyldum attempts to evoke both Interstellar (time as the enemy, the
psychological effects of being alone in space for years on end) and Danny Boyle’s
Sunshine (the transit of a spaceship
across the sun, only here it’s less reflective pause, more date night). It’s a
collection of sci-fi bits n’ bobs slotted together into a uniformly attractive
whole that trades darkness and debate for smiles and CGI.
