4/9/2021
Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp and Fionn Whitehead play young space travelers whose expedition to colonize a distant planet spins into chaos in Neil Burger s sci-fi thriller, also starring Colin Farrell.
Writer-director Neil Burger s visually alluring but dramatically underpowered sci-fi thriller about an interplanetary mission blitzed by a hormonal explosion,
Voyagers, is basically
Lord of the Flies in space. Or
Passengers without hypersleep pods. Either way, it s not terribly original. A solid cast and stylish design work in a spacecraft whose endless corridors become sprint lanes for cinematographer Enrique Chediak s invigorating camerawork make the Lionsgate release an easy watch and a big improvement over the studio s recent sci-fi snooze,
By LINDSEY BAHR
AP Film Writer
The most surprising thing about â Voyagers,â a sci-fi thriller about a group of young adults who have been tasked with travelling to and repopulating a new planet, is that it isnât based on a Young Adult book series. Writer and director Neil Burger, who was also behind the âDivergentâ films apparently decided to cut out the Intellectual Property middleman and make his own YA statement. That said, it does borrow heavily from quite a few other sources, with shades of âLord of the Flies,â âThe Giver,â âEnderâs Game,â âEuphoriaâ and any number of space madness films.
Voyagers review: Hormonal young astronauts run amok in this silly sci-fi thriller washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
âSexyâ new movie is anything but With a movie poster that suggests itâs a sexy thriller with hot young stars is anything but what itâs selling.
Movies by Wenlei Ma Attractive young people madly running down sterilised hallways. That s it. That s the movie. OK, that s a bit facetious because there is more going on in
Voyagers, but there is a hell of a lot of running down hallways over the movie s 108-minute running time. Generously described as
Lord of the Flies in space ,
Voyagers is ostensibly an exploration of what happens when you trap 30 bright young things in a tin can on an 86-year mission to colonise a new planet.
Neil Burger’s sci-fi flick “Voyagers” feels like the product of a brainstorming session that started with the concept “Nostromo for teens.” Indeed, the “Alien” DNA is obvious in “Voyagers,” but Ridley Scott’s 1979 masterpiece is inescapable in modern sci-fi. Burger has given the sturdy, familiar template a “Lord of the Flies” twist with motivation borrowed from Space X impresario and would-be Mars colonizer Elon Musk: The Earth is too hot, so we must find another planet.
With that premise, writer-director Burger (“The Illusionist,” “Divergent”) takes the opportunity to pose the necessary questions inherent in intergalactic migration: How long will it take? Who will go? What do you pack? The answers provide the basic conceit of “Voyagers.” It’ll take too long 86 years, in fact. So they have to plan for at least one generation to live their lives in space, reproducing future planetary pioneers. They should be old enough to drive but young enough