Voyagers (2021 | USA | 108 minutes | Neil Burger)
When it comes to science fiction cinema, there is a wide variety in terms of quality of storytelling. Recently, there have been ambitious and thoughtful films like Ad Astra as well as misjudged misfires like Passengers that was never sure of what it wanted to be.
Voyagers, written and directed by Neil Burger, falls somewhere in the middle. For a supposed “adventure” film, it is not particularly adventurous. For a film that calls itself a “thriller,” it is only moderately thrilling. The most compelling part remains the initial inklings of the story, which regrettably does not settle into a satisfying destination.
The story itself follows a crew of astronauts on a multi-generational mission to inhabit a new planet as our current home is becoming increasingly unlivable due to the existential threat of man-made climate change. Thus, a crew must begin this trip as children whose grandchildren will be tasked with forming a society on a brand new world.
They are led by Colin Farrell’s Richard, a man with no reason left to stay on Earth who volunteers to join the mission and “raise” the children as a father figure. Overlooking the alarming fact that this mission was at one point considering sending children into space without anyone to help them, it is Richard’s willingness to essentially sacrifice his own life that changes their mind.
While on this mission, Richard must oversee Tye Sheridan’s Christopher, Lily-Rose Depp’s Sela, and Fionn Whitehead’s Zac as they slowly begin to realize that all is not what it seems on this mission. The primary discovery comes when Christopher begins to ask questions about a “medication” all the children are receiving that he discovers is there to keep them docile in order for the mission to succeed.
It initially seems like the big focus will be the children slowly realizing Richard’s drugging them and working to rebel against his authority. Instead, the film sidesteps this more interesting narrative and quickly takes Richard out of the picture to make the film about how the children survive on their own. As they fight amongst themselves about how to live their lives, the primary disagreement arises between Christopher and Zac who represent different parts of human nature. Christopher is measured yet naive. Zac is violent and borders on monstrous. Their fight becomes the focus of how the group should move forward.
The problem is that the film is mostly made of misdirections as it gestures towards interesting elements, both narratively and visually, that are far too short lived for their own good. It is established early on that there may be some other force that could threaten the crew when a character remarks on the creaking of the ship as something they should be worried about. The real answer ends up being lackluster and, when revealed, so largely inconsequential that it makes one wonder why the film was ever telegraphing it as being important.
Visually, the film makes frequent injections of disconnected imagery of violence, sex, and the like when the kids begin to come off the drugs. Seemingly made up of stock footage, it is grasping at some sort of stylistic flair that unfortunately falls flat. These interjections add some life to the bland design of the ship, but only because the imagery is being injected from outside the story. They soon become vacuous as they give way to the banality of the homogenous interiors. The labeling of the film as “euphoric” only goes so far when the images never reach their full potential or provide anything other than a distraction from what makes up the majority of runtime.
With all that in mind, the film is competently made with an engaging enough core about how it is our fellow people that can be the greatest threat to our own survival. The twists and turns themselves are predictable, though not in an offensive way. It never is daring enough to show the full depravity of our often violent nature as it is limited by a PG-13 rating and budgetary constraints that lead to the same sets being recycled on a loop. There is still enough under this bland exterior to chew on and see where the potential was for something more, though only just.
Voyagers is available in theaters on April 9 and on VOD on April 30.