Passengers

So rounding off last year (and with a 'best of the year' list to come shortly) we have the hotly-anticipated and well-advertised Passengers. Brilliantly capitalising on our current obsession with space movies and the critical recognition they've been getting (Gravity, Interstellar, Arrival, The Martian) and casting probably the two biggest stars in Hollywood right now (no wonder there's hardly anyone else in the movie!) Morten Tyldum's film should be a resounding success and a nice way to end a somewhat hit-and-miss year. Luckily [drum roll] it delivers on this promise.

Suggesting, and almost living up to, its Titanic-in-space promise, it's best to know as little as possible about Passengers before heading in. There's a colony several light years away and, on passage there in hibernation, these two 'wake up' a conveniently annoying 90 years early.

That's as much as I'll give you as, fortunately, the key plot twist is hidden from the trailers (which makes a change in 2016!)

As you'd expect from such starry leads Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence excel in a movie basically designed to ogle at our new faces of film. Whilst there's some all-too-convenient shirt off/bikini scenes their chemistry sizzles and their isolation, loneliness, fear and relationship with one another (as effectively the 'last two people left alive') feels suitably realistic.

The visuals are sumptuous with the spaceship Avalon, and its creepy Alien-like deserted corridors, wonderfully rendered and its Hal-like disembodied voices and slowly crumbling systems gives a nice, thrilling edge.

Like the aforementioned Titanic this is more character-driven drama than action film but it does burst into a suspenseful final 20 minutes.

A film delivering on its promise is a lovely way to end the year and hopefully bodes well for a fruitful 2017. Cheers to that.

4 stars ****