Passengers
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: December 21, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
41
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
23
Negative:
16
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 20, 2016
Inside this failed picture there’s a sicker, darker, more truthful one crying to get out. But for a while, Passengers is really going for something. The movie it might have been is lost in space, alone, never to be seen by mere mortals. All we can see from Earth are its few brightly burning scraps, but at least it’s something. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottDec 20, 2016
Tyldum's "Twlight Zone"-tinged action-romance is a mass-appeal crowd-pleaser, the kind of made-for-the-holidays movie that holds a little something for everyone. Even better, being neither a sequel nor a remake, it's got something few sci-fi films do nowadays: originality. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 20, 2016
Where the film falters a bit is with the story. The final act is reminiscent of any of your garden-variety sci-fi adventure movies, which is a jolt after we’ve spent the rest of the movie watching these two figure each other out and try to make peace with their situation. Read full review
60
CineVueTom DugginsDec 20, 2016
Whatever strange alchemy went into this film, nothing is so strange as how compelling it proves to be when you approach its premise with complete seriousness. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 19, 2016
Only a corporate entity could deliver an ending like this one. But only humans could devise and enact the often delightful scenario that precedes it. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatt MaytumDec 15, 2016
As sci-fi, it feels like a professionally produced hybrid that lacks its own identity. As a romance, it never fully earns your investment. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 19, 2016
This is science fiction needing more work on the fiction part, an intriguing premise running its course halfway through. Passengers is too smart for starters to devolve into green screen spectacle relegating its attractive stars to unconvincing gapes. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshDec 21, 2016
The problem is that one can't help but think of better, more interesting movies based on this premise. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldDec 20, 2016
Passengers turns out to be a very strange journey indeed; here’s hoping these two team up again, in something more worthy of them. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanDec 20, 2016
The final failure comes in a climax that defies science, good taste and common sense. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 20, 2016
Part outer-space romantic comedy, part science-fiction thriller, Passengers leave us feeling we’ve been taken for a ride. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 20, 2016
The film has lots of promising problems for us to dive into with our heroes, mechanical and philosophical puzzles to sort out. But from the opening moments, Jon Spaihts’ screenplay drifts off course, choosing to explain things that would be more dramatic as mysteries and secrets. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Dec 15, 2016
It loses some of its warmth, and most of its charm. And it ends up as nearly as cold and creepy as the space it takes us through. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanDec 15, 2016
There’s only one place for Passengers to go, and once it gets there, Jon Spaihts’s script runs out of gas. Tyldun handles the dialogue almost as if he were doing a stage play, but he turns out to be a blah director of spectacle; he doesn’t make it dramatic. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenDec 15, 2016
While Passengers offers a few shrewd observations about our increasingly tech-enabled, corporatized lives, its heavy-handed mix of life-or-death exigencies and feel-good bromides finally feels like a case of more being less. Read full review
42
The Film StageBill GrahamDec 23, 2016
It’s a shame that Passengers couldn’t improve on its initial hook. With a distinct lack of chemistry and a director without the know-how to find a deeper meaning in story, the shoddy foundation of the premise quickly collapses. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeDec 20, 2016
The effect of Passengers is to turn frothy sci-fi romance into an astonishingly retrograde statement on autonomy and consent, and to turn one of the most likable actors in Hollywood into a total fucking creep. A date movie, this is not. Read full review
42
IndieWireKate ErblandDec 15, 2016
Passengers refuses to really wrestle with the compelling questions at its core, instead opting to lean on Lawrence and Pratt’s collective charm to keep things ticking amiably along. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyDec 23, 2016
As a directing assignment, it at least proves that The Imitation Game was no fluke: Morten Tyldum can make glossily sexless, space-cadet guff out of whatever half-baked script you throw at him. The attempts at humour are wince-inducing. Read full review
40
SlateLaura BennettDec 21, 2016
For audiences expecting a two-hour charm offensive, Passengers is not the movie you think you’re going to see. It’s something considerably darker and dumber. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen HoldenDec 20, 2016
Passengers increasingly succumbs to timidity and begins shrinking into a bland science-fiction adventure whose feats of daring and skill feel stale and secondhand. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonDec 15, 2016
There are a handful of really interesting scenes.... But for the most part Passengers is so anodyne, so frightened of the ethically troubling opportunities inherent in the setup that it just ends up feeling forgettable and silly. Read full review
40
The GuardianAndrew PulverDec 15, 2016
Stalking tactics bolstering romantic comedies are by no means new, and over the decades, film-makers have proved adept at somehow planing down real-world nastiness, but here it’s gruesomely inescapable. Read full review
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