Stupidity abounds in the new “thriller” Passengers, a tired old, cliché-filled romp through the netherworlds of creativity and netherworlds that are a little more literal. The basic problem with the film is that I’ve seen The Sixth Sense. I saw it when the ending was still a surprise; all shocking and new. Somewhere, it seems that the makers of this movie lost the understanding that a mystery should have some mystery in it, or at least equal parts mystery and annoyance. In Passengers, there’s just annoyance. You wish you could be bored enough to check out, but the film isn’t even worth the indifference necessary to expend any emotion.

Starting in a very-Lost-like manner, we see a plane crash on approach to some unnamed city that’s obviously Vancouver in real life. Ten survivors walk away from the crash and Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway) is the trauma therapist put in charge of their recovery. But something weird happens, naturally. People in the group start to disappear and the creepy man from the airline (David Morse) simply says cryptic things that make Claire think there’s some sort of conspiracy afoot. Claire also finds herself falling for the one survivor that seems perfectly giddy post-crash, the odd ball Eric (Patrick Wilson).

Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that you can’t give a proper dissection to without spilling some beans about the plot, so there be some spoilers ahead. Now if the Sixth Sense reference above didn’t get your mind reeling, let me be clear: they all died. That’s right all the quote-unqoute “survivors” are merely spirits wandering about on the Earth because they’ve yet to accept the fact that they’re dead. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the exact same reason that Bruce Willis’ character couldn’t depart in The Sixth Sense. But don’t be fooled! Hathaway’s Claire can’t just see dead people… Here’s the twist: she’s one of the dead people!

Bam! Now from what I was able to gleam from the way the story was structured, we were all supposed to have guessed that maybe the passengers were ghosts, and the twist is supposed to be that Claire is too. Honestly, this was only twisty for the way it kind of strained the implausibility. Why was it that Claire couldn’t remember being on the plane, or meeting and talking to Eric before hand? And even if it was all some form of trauma-induced, ghost amnesia why didn’t she ever question the interaction with the spectral apparitions of her grandmother (Diane Wiest) and her old school teacher (Andre Braugher)?

Mental. It’s just mental how monstrously bad this whole proceeding came together. I can’t even say for certain that this film was competently made because the sheer preposterousness of the affair made me wonder, a) where this was going and b) why wasn’t it getting there faster? Patrick Wilson can be terribly bland unless handled right and he is so similarly bland here. And I adore Anne Hathaway, but talk about wasted talent. And speaking of wasted talent, how can you hire the Cigarette-Smoking Man himself, actor William B. Davis, and have him in the miniscule role of Wilson’s kindly grandpa?

This thing is a fuster-cluck, so to speak, from beginning to end; from conception to execution. It’s like someone said – oh, I don’t know – let’s just throw a bunch of crap into the mixer: Lost, Sixth Sense, Da Vinci Code… you know, whatever. I don’t know if it’s lazy, but it kind of comes across that way. It’s no wonder this didn’t get a huge release. High School the Musical had more depth and foreboding than this. And that, may be, the most frightening fact of all.