The passengers aboard the Avalon space ship are flying across space, asleep in hibernation pods to embark on a 125-year journey to their new world, Homeland II. The plot begins when one of the pods malfunctions and Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) wakes up ninety years too early. He finds himself alone with only a robot bartender for company. Jim spends over a year alone, trying to resist forcefully waking up Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) who he becomes fascinated by after rooting through the space ships database. Film-makers seem to think this invasion of privacy for his entertainment is a small price to pay for the romance that follows, but as an audience member I’d say it was a deal-breaker. However, although Jim Preston takes Auroras life, we have to sympathise with him, as solitary confinement would send a man mad.
The trailer definitely gives the wrong impression of what the film turned out to be. It is no Interstellar that’s for sure, so if that was the kind of thing you were expecting, think again. In fact, putting it under the ‘romantic’ genre would be much more suitable. However, as a hopeless romantic myself, I did enjoy the final message of the film and Jennifer Lawrence’s character’s ability to forgive Jim, made it easy for the audience to do the same. Plus, his guilt is clear once he offers her the one last chance to go back to sleep and make it to Homeland II, leaving him in solitude once more. The love story offers a heart felt message and a moral lesson and with the few space walks, I guess you can call it sci-fi.
