Uh oh! The new space-thriller Stowaway on Netflix has been added to the never-ending list of movies with unfavorable endings.
Stowaway premiered on Netflix on Thursday, April 22, and became an instant hit. Its debuting weekend was shared with the highly-anticipated series Shadow and Bone. Both have been successfully taking over the list of trending programs on Netflix in the United States.
The movie has an all-star cast, featuring Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, and Shamier Anderson. They play a crew of space professionals and the discovered spacecraft stowaway and “luckless engineer” Michael (Anderson). Together, they all embark on a suspenseful trip into outer space.
Stowaway ending explained
Stowaway had a terribly tragic ending. After Michael is discovered on board, the crew realizes that they don’t have enough supplies and oxygen for all four of them to survive. But, rather than letting this turn into a senseless fight to the death, crew member Zoe (Kendrick) mentions that there is extra oxygen tucked away, roughly 450 feet above their rocket.
In the final 30 minutes of the movie, Zoe and biologist David (Kim) go to retrieve the oxygen. Viewers let out a massive sigh of relief as it was successfully obtained, and the two began to make their way back to safety. However, it is a shaky and physically challenging journey to navigate. After suffering some turbulence, Zoe drops one of the two oxygen canisters, leaving her and David helpless as they watch it float off into space. Amidst all of this, there is also a solar storm, and the duo is warned that they need to return to the ship due to a lethal amount of radiation in the air.
Since the duo arrived back to the ship with only one oxygen canister, it sets the crew back to square one: Will they sacrifice one for the survival of all? Zoe makes that call for them and decides to risk her life, exiting the ship to retrieve the excess oxygen. After successfully retrieving another canister and lowering it back to the ship, she stays outside of the spacecraft, taking her last breaths.
How did viewers react?
While the movie has been averagely reviewed, earning a critics score of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 61%, viewers have been tweeting about their disappointment with the movie’s ending. Many have expressed that they thought the ending was abrupt and that it made them upset.
The general consensus appears that the movie is engaging, but the ending was a major letdown. However, that may add to the high stakes displayed in Stowaway as an inopportune death was always in the back of everybody’s mind — both the fictional crew and the movie’s unsuspecting viewers.
Stowaway is currently streaming on Netflix.
Incredibly lame ending. I wasn’t sad, I felt cheated. The stowaway was studying his MASTERS IN ENGINEERING, a better ending would involve him surprising the crew by being the one to save everyone with a solution. This ending was basic. Kill 1 to save 1. Profound. /sarcasm