I’m not sure why I enjoy Anne Hathaway’s work as much as I do.  Maybe it’s that innocent quality to her, that wide-eyed almost naivete that’s just so unaccountably charming.  Maybe it’s just that she’s hotter than stolen plutonium.

Anyway, when I first heard about Passengers, all I could think was, great, yet another Sixth Sense knockoff.  Sadly, I was more right than I cared to admit, but frankly, it’d be spoilering to tell you how.  Besides…you can probably draw the inferences yourself based on what I just said.  Simple logic’ll let you draw THAT connection.

As for the plot, it’s rather straightforward—Anne Hathaway will play Claire Summers, a psychologist who’s just received one doozy of an assignment: take psychological care of about half a dozen survivors of a plane crash.  They’ve all got wildly different stories about what happened on that crash, and that’s got our Claire very concerned.  What’s got Claire even MORE concerned, however, is that her new patients are starting to disappear.  Not just miss sessions, but actually vanish off the face of the earth.  Sometimes, they even disappear within seconds of her speaking to them.  And to further complicate matters, she’s actually falling for one of her patients, who forces her to see a whole new side of herself in the midst of the therapy.  And as she proceeds through the therapy, and the rash of missing persons cases, she discovers a whole lot more than she ever expected to find.

Yes, it’s got “thriller” stamped all over it, even if it’s a little short on the thrills and a whole lot longer than you’d expect on the romance and drama.  In fact, I’m feeling pretty cheated that they even CALLED this thing a thriller.  The plotline is basic thriller material but it’s like they left all the thrills out of it.  I know I just said that, but I’m downright baffled.  Where did they GO?  There’s almost nothing scary in here at ALL.  You might as well just call this a romance drama and have done with it because I got like one good jump scare and one good shock out of the whole thing.  The rest of the time it was just Anne Hathaway carrying on a romance with Patrick Wilson and acting like she’s going insane.  Worse, it’s not even in a really convincing fashion.  I spent half the movie convinced that Anne Hathaway needs to do more horror movies, and the OTHER half convinced that she needs to stick to romantic comedies.  Maybe a little more time on the darker side of film would give her some extra punch and range.  I’d LOVE to see her take on a haunted house or go up against a Pennywise the Dancing Clown or something.  That’d be just awesome.  Because right now, she is sorely lacking in the horror chops department.  She’s got chops enough to be good in most anything, but suspense, thrillers, horror—the darker stuff—is clearly not something she’s well-acquainted with.  It shows.

I did get some fun out of it, even if the ending was a pretty big disappointment in retrospect.  I’d never buy a copy of Passengers, but it makes a decent rental, and isn’t a bad date movie either.  It’s a bit weak, but it’s solid enough that it’s not a complete loss.  So go ahead and give it a try, especially on those nights when you can’t find anything better to rent.