Voyagers: Film Review

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Fionn Whitehead, Lily Rose-Depp, Colin Farrell

Director: Neil Burger

There's a kernel of a great story idea in Neil Burger's Voyagers.

But unfortunately, this Lord of The Flies mash-up cautionary tale of male malevolence and Trumpian overtones that's set in space just can't quite nail the script that it wants to commit to the screen.

In the year 2063, with the Earth dying, a decision's made to send a mission into space after a potential planet for colonisation is discovered. But the mission will take 86 years to get there, meaning the crew of children won't live to see its fruition or to enjoy its fruits, and their sole purpose is to become hosts for their children's children.

Born and bred in a laboratory, isolated from the world, the crew of 30 are nothing more than docile labrats, carrying out tasks overseen by the patriarchal Richard (Farrell), who volunteered for the one way mission.

However when one of their number, Christopher (Sheridan, solid and relatable a guide as the audience could need) discovers the daily liquid they've been quaffing is drugged, he, along with more impulsive compatriot Zac (Whitehead, all angular sneering and raging contempt) decide to abandon the routine, throwing the future of the mission into severe jeopardy.

It's not that Voyagers doesn't have the necessary moral quandaries within to sustain it.

The idea of nihilism and the futility of these labrats as they face a lifetime of servitude to a cause greater than themselves as they grapple with teenage rebellion is a smart one to explore. That coupled with the fight between nature and nurture, hedonism, conditioning and ideologies provide fertile ground for the film to explore.

It's just that it squanders it for a particularly rote action thriller as the group splits into factions, headed up by Christopher and Zac, and the cliches play out among the "our lives are futile" subtext.

Coupled with contemporary themes of consent and fake news as Zac claims the alien is on board to whip up the politics of mistrust, there's much that bubbles away under the surface of Voyagers. But it's spoiled by unnecessary dialogue where characters read what's on a page, rather than act it - it's a near fatal flaw for Voyagers, and one which brings this space-bound set movie thuddingly down to the ground.

While Depp and Sheridan have a reasonable chemistry, Whitehead's descent into near Jack Nicholson levels of mania pushes the film into unwelcome OTT territory and renders most of the back half of the film more cliched and uninspired than its initial premise would have dictated. Thankfully, the production design by Scott Chambliss gives credence to the location, and plays to the paranoia and claustrophobia of those within, thanks to sheer white panels, and endless pristine corridors the likes of which haven't been this well-utilised since 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Ultimately, Voyagers feels like it relies too much on speeches to propel it and rote action-chase-thriller edges that drag it out of an intriguing murder mystery that plays to paranoid edges and provides much of the movie's suspense.

File Voyagers under a case of "could have been"; it's effective in parts, but in the final wash thanks to a formulaic end that squanders the darker edges of the potential debates that could have elevated it from a Space-set Lord of the Flies, that's just not enough.