Passengers Review

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Passengers got a lot of posters back when it came out but they did a good job because I really didn’t know much about the film. It’s definitely not a big alien invasion sci-fi so don’t go in expecting that. It’ more of a quiet title about finding out if you can live by yourself or if you would go crazy. This is the kind of film where there’s a lot to say but ultimately I don’t think the execution was very good. The main character holds this one back a lot because he makes some massive mistakes and I wouldn’t say that the ending is very satisfying either.

The premise here is that a bunch of people decided to voluntarily go into stasis for close to 100 years so they could wake up on a new planet and start a new life for themselves. The spaceship they’re on is super safe so they’re guaranteed not to wake up early. Well Jim wakes up around 88 years early unfortunately. The ship has enough supplies to last him for the rest of his life so technically he can absolutely survive on his own but at the same time but now he’s lonely. So he wakes up another passenger named Aurora because he’s hoping to marry her but can’t let her know that he intentionally woke her up and pretends it was a glitch. Can he keep this pretense up and won’t it completely wreck the romance?

So right off the bat Jim looks really bad here. There’s just no excuse for waking someone up. You’ve just ended that person’s life because she won’t be able to reconnect with society now. She is doomed to only have this guy for company and it’s not like he has the most selfless of intentions. There’s just no excusing this and it massively hurts his character.

Jim did last a year or two on his own before waking her up but even then he should have kept on going. The ship has all kinds of entertainment like basketball and dancing, not to mention a sentient robot that can talk to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has books and other things as well. Will you get bored from time to time? Sure, absolutely that will happen without a doubt but at the same time that’s just how the ball bounces.

Now, there is one other option and that is to wake everyone up. Just explain that the pod opened up early so you woke everyone else up to help out. Jim wanted to wake up the pilot and the tech crew but unfortunately they are in a different room from the passengers and so far it’s been impossible to open. So way I see it you wake everyone up or nobody. At least with everyone up then you can all figure out a way to open up the door and teamwork can go a long way. With just two people you’re not going to go far and of course it’s just super selfish. Survive on your own if you can’t make that call.

There is one thing the film doesn’t touch on that feels important though. This ship was stocked with the expectation that the crew would be asleep for the entire journey so in theory there aren’t going to be a ton of food supplies here. Certainly not enough for everybody so that’s another thing to consider if everyone is woken up. At the same time, even for one person you’re probably going to run out.

The original plan was to wake everyone up 1 month before arrival. So that’s one month of food for 5200+ people. That’s 15,600 meals and you can assume that they would have stocked some extra so maybe 20,000? Now lets look at Jim. If he has to live out the rest of his life here and I dunno, he’s probably late twenty’s to early thirty’s? I’m sure they said his age but I forget. We’ll assume about 27 as a good middle ground and with no threats or bad food to worry about lets say he lives to 87 just go keep the numbers round. That’s 60 years of 3 meals a day. 365 X 3 X 60 = 65,7000 meals. Lets now say he dies early at 67 just because. Then that’s still 43,800 meals. If Jim even lives for twenty years he will exceed the amount of food prepared for the whole ship.

So now we’ve voided the only reason for waking everyone up because they’re all dead either way. You can’t survive a month on no food so if they wake up and no food is there then they’re a goner. So again you have to wake everyone up and keep it moving. Learn how to create your own food but in a ship like this I wonder how possible that is. We see a garden near the end so I guess that could work. I have my doubts though and it’s the one glaring hole that I felt the film didn’t dive into. It’s not like it’s the point of the film but it’s worth thinking about since a huge part of the film is about deciding to wake up Aurora or not.

Well, I’ve already talked about Jim enough so we can end it there. He’s just not a good character. Meanwhile Aurora was reasonable enough. At first she tries to come up with lots of ways to escape but Jim has given up so completely that he won’t help at all. You’d think he would at least be interested in hearing her out a bit in case she thinks of something. It’s not unheard of that someone could think of an idea that you couldn’t right?

Naturally the romance falls absolutely flat here though. You just can’t root for it at all since the whole thing is based on a lie. When she finds out the truth she is naturally upset but is basically told not to blame Jim much and there are no other options so you know they’ll end up together. It’s one of the annoying things about the film. I feel like you don’t forget a big lie like that so they should never get together. Make them friends or something and she takes the high road but a romance absolutely does not work. Easily the worst aspect of the film without a doubt.

The deception just can’t be walked back particularly because it’s possible he would have never told her if the robot didn’t rat him out. Even the scenes that should be charming and fun have a darker edge to them as a result since you’re rooting for Jim’s downfall. It’s why Arthur was a fun robot since I absolutely think he sabotaged Jim on purpose. That was my interpretation of the scene at least. That little smirk of his before talking told me everything that I needed to know. The fact that there is a robot here who can talk is yet another reason why Jim should have been satisfied. Their talks were reasonable.

We also get one of the crew named Gus who shows up briefly but he’s basically just here for some exposition and to open up the crew hangers. I would have cut him out of the film entirely to be honest because he really serves no purpose and doesn’t have great advice either. I would have been more upset with him if I was Aurora and his inclusion in the film ultimately doesn’t really change much.

We do get some danger and action at the end of the film so it’s not purely calm the whole time, just for most of it. The climax isn’t bad, there’s not a whole lot you can do in space to be honest but the visuals still look good. We even almost got a quick fight with Arthur going crazy and waving that knife of his.

Overall, Passengers is a film that really can’t survive the main character. I think there’s a lot of promise here if you just change up the story so the main two wake up. Yes, the romance would still be super cheesy but at least it wouldn’t be starting them off on the wrong foot so you have a better time believing in it. Romance is the main focus of this film so when that falls away then everything does along with it. Remake the film with that one change and you’re looking at a world of difference.

Overall 4/10

The Siege Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a film about the scary possibility of terrorists showing up to cause all kinds of terror on the city. It’s a pretty intense film to be sure although the heroes don’t make it any easier on themselves with all of the constant infighting. They seem to get in each other’s way as much as the villains do. It’s got a pretty solid premise even if I’d say it has some issues that keep it from being really solid. It’ll still keep your attention all the way through either way though.

The movie starts with FBI Agents Anthony and Frank trying to defuse a pretty intense terrorist situation with a bunch of people being stuck in a bus that has bombers in it. Anthony is able to at least get the kids out but everyone else dies. The most worrisome thing here is that there are apparently several other terrorist cells already active in Brooklyn so more of these disasters are going to happen. The tough part is how to pre-emptively stop these attacks before people end up dying. If you go too hard then you’re inevitably going to be hurting innocent people and if you stay reactive then innocent people are going to die in the explosions. So it’s a tough situation.

The film does a good job of showing that there are no easy solutions in a situation like this. You’ve got millions of people within the state and they are looking for less than 20 terrorists. Of course that’s just the number that they know but either way it is a very small percentage which does not work in their favor. People are not going to be happy with any option. Ultimately the president decides to call in the army once all other options fail and that brings General William to the forefront.

This guy is a pretty interesting character and I liked him. The whole film he is begging the president not to call him in because if that happens then they are going to be in a lot of trouble. As he says the army is like a blunt object. They will neutralize the threat but there will be a whole lot of collateral damage and it won’t be quiet or subtle. On the other hand the quiet ways with the FBI and CIA have not yielded any true results yet to the president pulls him in.

Thing is, William is very serious about succeeding even if it means that he does commit a lot of destruction. He treats Brooklyn as he would any warzone in which case he is kidnapping people and also resorting to torture right away. This guy is not holding back at all. As the film goes on he starts to look more and more unhinged but what adds to his character is the fact that he initially didn’t want to be called in. It was a real last resort so he knew that he would lose control. There’s a whole lot you could say about a character like this.

Meanwhile Anthony is doing his best here but it sure is tough. He’s trying to solve this case by staying within the rules but that means he has no time to make any true progress. He also has to deal with the CIA agent Elise who is not making this any easier by keeping a whole lot of secrets. She is working with a guy named Samir who is a big criminal himself but she figures he can lead them to the terrorists. Anthony is not comfortable with this plan at all but compromises because he has no real alternatives.

Anthony takes a lot of risks and is always in the front lines so you can definitely appreciate him here. He’s a really good main character. His partner Frank also gets a big role but tends to lose his cool a little too quickly. There’s the scene where he punches a suspect and has to be calmed down and then he really loses it when the army takes his son. It definitely is rough to be treated just like the rest of the suspects after all his years of faithful service. You can understand why all suspects have to be brought in even ones with government ties. It’s the only logical approach but because the army is committing a lot of human rights violations and treating people badly it’s just shining even more of a light on that.

I didn’t really care for Elise though. Sure as a CIA member she has to keep some secrets but I think she keeps too many of them and this ultimately comes at the expense of the other heroes at times. The whole way she handles Samir was not good. I never liked the trope of basically trying to seduce the enemy, it’s too heavy a price to move forward. Then you’d also have to acknowledge that the one you’re trying to manipulate could just be enjoying the benefits while not actually being manipulated.

Having informants itself is a controversial move to be sure since you’re basically allowing criminals to run free in the hopes of getting others. Perhaps it is necessary sometimes but choosing those moments and not crossing the line is not an easy task at all. I just thought her judgment was really off here the whole time. Meanwhile Samir is never portrayed as a good guy himself. He commits crimes and just keeps on moving. He has a lot of protection so he’s never really had to worry a whole lot and it’s sort of annoying to see him be to brazen the whole time.

While I think the heroes could have handled this all a lot better, it’s also easy to backseat coach after it’s all over. Ultimately the film delivers on having a lot of political intrigue the whole time and the characters debating what the right thing to do is. William goes a bit far by the end but it also leads to a really tense scene at the climax that is one of the highlight moments of the film.

Overall, The Siege is a film you won’t soon forget. They really did a good job of exploring what it could be like to have active terrorist cells in the city with the government trying to deal with it. It would certainly be a terrifying ordeal and deciding how far to go would be a big point of discussion. Especially with online discourse you know there would be a million opinions right away. I don’t see things ever escalating in quite the way they did in this film like calling out the army and shutting down a whole borough but at the same time you never really know.

Overall 6/10

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Review

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It’s time for another Legend of Zelda game. You could say I’m on a bit of a roll eh? This is another fairly recent overhead title so it comes with a lot of the quality of life updates you saw in the Switch game as well. I wouldn’t say this one quite beats Link’s Awakening but the story here is better. It’s a really fresh story with fun characters and very high stakes the whole time. You can’t go wrong there.

The story starts out with an intruder named Yuga showing up and infiltrating Hyrule. He starts turning everyone into portraits and even does this to Zelda before Link can stop him. Link is turned into a portrait as well but fortunately his armlet prevented this from being permanent and Link can now use the ability to phase into a wall like a paper character. He must now stop Yuga in his mad quest for power. To do this Link will need to awaken the Triforce, grab the master sword, and keep the 7 sages safe. Can he pull this off?

First off the graphics here are really solid. We get the occasional full cutscene where the animation can really shine but even in gameplay it’s very clear. There are a lot of striking colors all around and the boss designs are good. I won’t say this will compete with the top Nintendo games but it does well on the 3DS. The soundtrack is also a lot of fun with great themes around every corner. You’ll have a lot of fun listening to the game as you go on.

The gameplay is your classic Legend of Zelda style but there is one big improvement here which is that you get your weapons right away. So Ravio sells just about every weapon in the game and you can rent them for cheap. So the best thing to do is rent all of them and you only lose the weapon if you die so make sure you save the game a lot. Now I did this for pretty much the whole game but the only time it is tempting to let yourself die is if you made a lot of progress in a dungeon. After all resetting would lose that data so check to see how much money you have and if it’s enough then I would suggest just going back to the shop and renting everything again. When you get a game over you are given the option to respawn there anyway so it won’t take very long.

There are quick travel teleports all over the map so you rarely have to replay any large part of the game. Money is also fairly abundant and I was able to permanently buy a few of the items later on so then dying doesn’t even matter as much. All of the weapons will be useful at some point in the game so having them all will minimize how often you have to backtrack through it all. Towards the end there is a point in the game where you have the option to pick from 7 dungeons and the fun part is you can basically do them in any order. It’s like the game is part open world which is nice.

It makes for a pleasant experience although you can expect things to get a little tough for the final boss. Now there’s a boss that beat me quite a few times. I still feel like some attacks are almost Rng but hang in there and you’ll be okay. I couldn’t figure out how to get a fairy in the bottle for this game so buy a potion from the witch instead to restore your health. I also highly recommend getting all of the Master Sword materials to max the sword out. This means you need less strikes for the boss which is massive since every hit counts. The boss can beat you in around 3 blows after all, at least with the number of hearts that I had.

Meanwhile with the story you’ll have a lot of twists and turns to get through which are fun to experience. Link and Zelda are great leads as always but for example we meet a princess named Hilda who is a lot of fun. She’s lake a version of Zelda who grew up without a hero and so things have been tough on her. She never gave up though and fights for her planet which is admirable. Then there’s the villain Yuga who is new to the series. He’s definitely powerful and puts up a fight though so you don’t want to underestimate him. This guy absolutely plays for keeps and the ability to turn anyone into a painting is actually really scary. It’s hard to dodge and if not for the armlet then that would have been it for Link right there.

Each of the boss fights are unique and require different strategies. Yuga’s fights tend to have you be very observant to react to where he goes while other fights will require you to throw bombs from afar or get in close for a classic sword fight. Adapt how you fight for each boss and you’ll be fine. It really makes you feel like you’re playing through a true adventure that way as button mashing will not be enough to win here. The going through walls gimmick was also handled really well so it didn’t feel tacked on.

Overall, Link Between Worlds is a really fun game. It’s easily got one of the best Link stories and there is a whole lot of suspense here. It’s a very satisfying journey that keeps you on your toes and the gameplay had a lot of effort put into it by the devs. The dungeons are all long enough to be memorable while not overstaying their welcome. I liked how the floors were used in that switches on one floor could affect things on another. It made even the small dungeons feel big with how they kept adapting and the puzzles were handled fairly. If you don’t have this game yet then I definitely recommend fixing that!

Overall 7/10