Jenifer Lawrence is enough to make me go and see a film. I've not disliked her in anything I have seen her in and she is really attractive. Chris Pratt is an added bonus because you know that there aren't going to be an sex scenes- makes for nicer viewing.
5,000 passengers and crew members are asleep in hibernation for 120 years on a space ship journey from Earth to Homestead 2, a new life on a planet which is still being built. It costs a lot to get on the ship unless you are in a desirable trade such as mechanic, engineer, plumber etc and can contribute structurally to the development of Homestead 2. Jim Preston is a mechanic and Aurora Lane is a writer. Preston boards the ship so that he can build his own life and home on a new planet while Lane boards the ship so that she can write about her journey to and from Homestead 2. Here's the issue, you're supposed to sleep in hibernation for 119 years, 11 months and then just wake up for the last month but the ship malfunctions, it is damaged by huge rocks in space and Preston wakes up 90 years early. Only Arthur (Michael Sheen), an android is around for him to talk to but he starts to build things and look around the ship, trying to work out why he woke up so early and is going to die on the ship.
A year on and bored of being alone he examines the pods and finds Aurora, accesses her file and decides to wake her up. He does and after a while they fall in love because they are going to die before anyone wakes up and then of course she finds out that he woke her up, condemning her to death with him instead of letting her sleep. Plot thickens when Laurence Fishburne also wakes up. As deck captain his access codes allow over rides to take place and when he accesses all the files he learns that the ship is malfunctioning on a catastrophic level but he dies before he can help so he hands over his access code and leaves it to Preston and Lane to fix the ship, which they do so that the other 5000 people can live and make it to Homestead 2.
The ship is something to be envious of. The swimming pool, the basketball pitch, the dance off's- even though I would be bored within a year there are still things to do and it is a nice ship. There's a nice balance between passion/emotion and control. When you could get angry and scream it's in the face and the control is enough to sound angry and even at times act aggressively but not enough to make you go all out.
Chris Pratt is good but Lawrence is better. The character of Preston is a determined man who often displays emotions of sadness but the character of Lane gets to experience and express emotions of happiness, love, desire, determination, heroism, sadness and anger. She gets to express and do so much more with her character than he does with his. What makes it so good is the music behind it. The score is fascinating. When stuck in space there can be a tendency to not do much with the score but the music is expressive, it matches the action and the on screen action in every way. The last scene is the scene to beat. That moment of waking up, walking out on deck and seeing what they see, hearing the explanation and just staring- like 'what the hell has gone on here'. It's fantastic.
This film received mixed reviews but I can't see why. You kind of get the happy ending but you also don't and that is wonderful. You know what has to happen but instead of feeling sad about it you smile at the end. The wardrobe is wonderful, especially her dresses. Watching Jenifer Lawrence take a sledge hammer to the door and continually hit it, watching her lift Chris Pratt is also something to admire. This isn't a woman for show, it's a woman who is strong and can show that physically.
I've talked a lot about Jenifer Lawrence but I feel that this was more her film than his. His character was a little selfish and had to be the heroic one and true almost everything he did was for her but she had to become so much stronger knowing that she had to live with the person who stole her life away from her. The guidance comes from Lawrence Fishburne and his character is one of the best supporting actors with about three scenes in the entire film that I have ever seen.
I am so glad that I have managed to see it, everything about it was spectacular and it deserves more than it will receive, a lot more.
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