Voyagers (2021)

Voyagers feels so astonishingly like a Young Adult novel and yet it is an original screenplay from director Neil Burger (Limitless, Divergent), though it borrows heavily from Lord of the Flies at that. Set in the distant future, we’re aboard a colony ship with teenagers meant to be the future of Earth, or at least their grandchildren will be when they land on a new planet. They’re kept on a controlled regiment of activity, nutrition, and mood-altering medication to keep their hormones in check until it’s optimum breeding time (in vitro operations). After an accident, the teenagers are all alone on a ship with no adults, and they fear an alien might have snuck on board. This leads to different factions being created, one that says to follow the rules established by their adult authority figures, and the other that wants to stop taking their meds, stop rationing their supplies, and live as wild as they desire. This leads to extended bouts of PG-13 horniess; the movie practically feels like it’s trying to dry hump you for stretches of time. Everything is very YA, from the character dynamics, to the major conflict without adults, to dealing with their hormones and the thrill of freedom. I found an unexpected parallel with this movie to the January 6 insurrection. The villain in this movie, played snidely by Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk), is a darkly charismatic leader who appeals to the most selfish, self-destructive instincts of his peers, and even after definitive proof is given about his moral culpability, he’s able to still gaslight his followers to accept his reality distortions and stirs them into an ignorant, violent mob. I found this character’s eventual death to be extremely satisfying as a climax. Regardless, Voyagers isn’t anything special. It’s a lot of running down corridors, smokey side eyes and lip biting, and paranoid shouting about who is or isn’t the alien. As a user so succinctly put it on Letterboxd, it’s “Among Us but horny.”

Nate’s Grade: C

About natezoebl

One man. Many movies. I am a cinephile (which spell-check suggests should really be "epinephine"). I was told that a passion for movies was in his blood since I was conceived at a movie convention. While scientifically questionable, I do remember a childhood where I would wake up Saturday mornings, bounce on my parents' bed, and watch Siskel and Ebert's syndicated TV show. That doesn't seem normal. At age 17, I began writing movie reviews and have been unable to stop ever since. I was the co-founder and chief editor at PictureShowPundits.com (2007-2014) and now write freelance. I have over 1400 written film reviews to my name and counting. I am also a proud member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA) since 2012. In my (dwindling) free time, I like to write uncontrollably. I wrote a theatrical genre mash-up adaptation titled "Our Town... Attacked by Zombies" that was staged at my alma mater, Capital University in the fall of 2010 with minimal causalities and zero lawsuits. I have also written or co-written sixteen screenplays and pilots, with one of those scripts reviewed on industry blog Script Shadow. Thanks to the positive exposure, I am now also dipping my toes into the very industry I've been obsessed over since I was yea-high to whatever people are yea-high to in comparisons.

Posted on December 28, 2021, in 2021 Movies and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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