This movie was already playing in Indonesian theaters since last Friday, but again due to various movies that premiered last week and were prioritized by my wife and I, and also due to other activities which we did during the weekend, we only managed to see this one on Monday noon. I took a 1 day leave from work as part of the Christmas holiday, so we could see this movie at the 2.50 PM show and we saw it at our nearest location in Setiabudi.
Brief Story Line
The movie was set in a very distant future, where space travels had become a normal thing to do. A transportation space ship named Avalon, was on its way to a new planet called Homestead II with 5000 people/colonists on board the ship and they were supposed to build the planet and make it a good place to live. The distance of the planet was very far and it would take 120 years to reach the location. To enable the colonist survive the long journey, all of them were put to sleep in a sleeping pod and were supposed to be awake 4 months prior to reaching Homestead II. This also included the > 200 ship crews so the space ship was put on autopilot to reach the location.
However, after just 30 years of travel, due to an unpredictable large asteroid stood in the way of the Avalon course, it caused some disturbance on the space ship which resulted to a pod malfunctioned. The person inside the pod was Jim Preston (Chris Pratt - Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World etc) who happened to be a mechanic. He did not realize that he was the only one that was awake until sometime later. Lucky for him, there was an android called Arthur (played by Michael Sheen - Tron: Legacy, Midnight in Paris etc) who tended the bar so he could at least had conversation with him.
Jim was unable to accept the reality of him becoming the only passenger awake and had to wait for 90 years before reaching the planet. At first he was in denial, doing everything he could to find the solution. At least he got Arthur to accompany him during the difficult moment. Until one day, another pod was opened and the passenger happened to be a woman who made Jim really fell in love with her. The woman was Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence - X-Man: First Class trilogy, The Hunger Games series and many more), who was a writer.
Just like Jim, Aurora was at first unable to accept the reality till finally she build a relationship with the only other passenger aboard the ship. Both of them were madly in love and they seemed to have accepted their faith by utilizing whatever things they could find or do aboard the ship. However, things were not as beautiful as it seemed, especially when the ship seemed to be having some problems.
So what was actually happening with the Avalon? Could Jim and Aurora survived the trouble on the ship? Would they live happily ever after aboard the ship? Find them all in this lovely story of a man and a woman being the only people stranded on "an island".
End of Brief Story Line
For a science fiction drama movie on space, this movie was surprisingly good. I was at first a little bit skeptical as I thought I would be bored with only 2 people playing in it. However, both Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence were big enough actor/actress that they could fill the whole movie by themselves. Of course Michael Sheen as the android was also a favorable character. The movie pace was understandably a bit slow for a drama movie. But Chris Pratt was playing such a charming character that I was sure audience would root for him. Who would not be, if we were in his position, waking up to a space ship all by himself with 90 years to reach location and nothing else to do? His characterization was very nicely done. Jennifer Lawrence certainly got a good chemistry with Chris Pratt in this movie. Their relationship seemed quite realistic as well.
There was also a surprise character showing up in the last 20 minutes. Despite the scenes were not a lot, but his presence made a lot of sense and also added the much needed information/explanation to the whole story. Now whether this movie had a happy ending, or a sad tragic ending, I would let you see it for yourself.
If I have to categorize this movie, it would fall into the category of romantic drama with space ship as the background and some nice special effects (scenes when there was zero gravity on the ship were cool, or the breathtaking scene outside the spaceship). But please do not mistake this as a full action space adventure movie like Alien quadrology. You would be very disappointed if that was what you were expecting. In the end, this was more of a love story and quite a beautiful one if I may add. I know my wife was touched with Jim and Aurora's relationship.
So if you are looking for romance movie on space, with some brief suspenseful events in the last part of the movie, then this one is definitely for you. But if you are looking for action on space type of movie, then it's better to watch Rogue One: A Star Wars Movie which is currently still playing in theaters.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment