Colin Farrell leads a crew of genetically engineered and chemically subdued youths on a perilous journey in a film that doesn’t have the guts to explore its perverse premise
There’s a tantalising R-rated premise at the centre of the PG-13-rated sci-fi thriller Voyagers. In the future, the Earth is slowly becoming uninhabitable (something that’s depressingly less fiction and more science) and so a crew is assembled, by a muted Colin Farrell, to travel to another planet to check for viability, a familiar set-up given a novel spin. Because of the length of the journey – a rather off-putting 86 years – participants will be created rather than procured, spliced together from the finest DNA and grown in a lab, their sole purpose to begin the trip, procreate and let their children and then their children lead the way.
But deep into the quest, a shocking discovery is made: the crew is being drugged. A blue liquid they’re told to take daily (explained away as some sort of enzyme mixture) is revealed to be something far more nefarious: a cocktail of chemicals aimed at subduing their impulses. By removing the ability to feel or desire extremities (fear, excitement, horniness) they are then made more docile and in turn more effective at achieving their mission. When two members decide to stop taking it, disaster strikes.