Voyagers

Shockingly enough, the premise isn't all that bad. It's just that the tropey story, amateur script and lackluster direction inevitably tank the whole thing. Skip this.

Gave a 5 for visuals. The rest is a yawn. Illogical bunch of rogue young test tubed space punks minus the few obvious do gooders that saved the day, on a mission to be mankind's future civilization on another planet. A story maze if you're looking to burn off close to 2 hours of idle time.

Many very shallow comments call this "Lord of the Flies in Space", or something akin to that. Doing so, or thinking so, misses the point completely. I'd say this movie has more in common with "Pleasantville" where the writer-director asked the question "Is it better to live in a totally safe, predictable world or in one where you have choices and can make mistakes?"

The hook here is 40+ years in the future and we are beginning to worry about long term viability of the Human species on Earth. So a voyage is planned to an inhabitable planet, even traveling at a very high speed will take 86 years to get there.

So the plan involves creating roughly 30 babies by conception and delivery in a lab, using genetics of intelligent and successful donors. The subjects are raised, educated, and trained in isolation so they have no attachment to the real world. During the 86-year trip they would reproduce and their grandchildren would become the settlers of the new planet.

While the ending has a satisfying statement the real story is during the trip itself, roughly ten years into it, when some then most of the voyagers begin to exercise free will, some don't care if the mission succeeds, "we will all die anyway." The question ultimately becomes "What is our true nature and can we learn to care about others and do things for the common good?"

My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library, a fine movie and much better than its IMDb rating would suggest.

This movie is actually quite intriguing for the first 40 minutes or so. The set design is excellent, and along with cold emotionless expressions on the actors and shots of the mundane lives of the would-be colonists, helps to establish a plausible set-up with tons of potential. They know they're the first generation of a ship on a multi-generational voyage to colonize another planet, and may also be humanity's last hope of survival. Their grim personas express their awareness of this fact and that the mission is paramount. There's even a mysterious hint at an unexpected presence on the ship to add to the suspense.

Don't bother watching the second half though. As a lot of other reviews have mentioned, it tries to adapt a plot similar to Lord of the Flies, however the big difference here is that these teenagers are supposed to have been highly trained for this mission their entire lives, and are literally the future of humanity. They're not a ragtag group of students on a deserted island struggling for survival.

I don't think I need to use any spoilers for you to imagine how trying to shoehorn the Lord of the Flies plot into this situation leads to a trainwreck of a last half. The script takes a sharp turn into utter nonsense with ridiculous dialogue and characters actions. It is truly such a pity and a waste of a great set-up.

I will say that I was impressed with the performance of Tye Sheridan in particular, and Colin Farrell can rarely do wrong as well. The other main actors were decent at best, or just too weighed down by atrocious dialogue to make anything of their performances.

I'd recommend watching the first 40min or so (8/10) and then just walking away and imagining your own conclusion. Anything would be better than what transpired in the last half of Voyagers.

Subpar flick lacking anything worth mentioning. The trailer was probably the best thing about this film and after watching the film you realise the trailer was waaaay better, the viiibes etc, rather cool.

Depp's daughter though, has a potential to be a good actress, just isn't quite there yet.