Pandorum Review

Posted by Erik Luers on 09.28.2009

The "why didn't this do better?" movie of the week......

Dennis Quaid ... Payton
Ben Foster ... Bower
Cam Gigandet ... Gallo
Antje Traue ... Nadia
Cung Le ... Manh
Eddie Rouse ... Leland
Norman Reedus ... Shepard








A worthy addition to the "creatures in space" science fiction subgenre, Christian Alvart’s Pandorum is scary, gory, and smart. It’s a haunted house movie similar to 20th Century Fox’s Alien series, as its settings are dark corridors with hidden secrets and people abound. When you’re trapped in space, where can you run? The film is The Descent in space, with the ship substituting for the cave; both locations are freakishly quiet and desolate, and the solitude is enough to make you go mad. Taking place so far in the future, I bet inflation is a real killer too. It’s not a perfect film by any means (it’s a little too obsessed with unsubtle depictions of schizophrenia to always hit its mark), but it is very fun and interesting. The best mysteries are about the act of getting to the truth, and not necessarily the reveal of the lackluster truth itself. Pandorum unravels and unwinds to a so-so, mildly satisfying conclusion, but the travel getting there is good enough to recommend the trip. It’s played straight and solemnly, and that works just fine.

In the future, Earth becomes overpopulated, and the need for more space becomes vital. Luckily, plant life has just been found on a planet known as Tanis (if I’m not spelling that correctly, let me know. It’s tough to look up fictional planets), prompting some humans to get ready to ship out over there. As the film opens, two men awaken in upright storage compartments aboard a spacecraft, unaware of how long they’ve been asleep. They actually can’t remember anything. You see, after being asleep for so darn long, it will take several hours for their memories to return (a clever plot device), provoking the two men, Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Bower (Ben Foster), to obtain any clues they can find.

The men look at their arms and see an imprinted crew number. Must mean something. They then turn on the ship’s computer database to get an overview of all its rooms and floors. They soon realize that they are locked in the room, as if they are being protected (or hidden) from something over yonder. Bower decides to sneak out by removing the grates on the ceiling and, with a walkie talkie and some green glow sticks, uncover the truth about who they are and why they are here. Bower will go on to find three more people, awake for much longer than him, similarly clueless and frightened. One man claims to have all the answers, but we soon realize that in a group of confused people, the one that claims to have the answers will foolishly be trusted.

Oh, and there are blood thirsty creatures resembling the nightmares of Neil Marshall and Guillermo Del Toro. They are of various shapes and sizes, and yet they all look rather angry. How did they get aboard the ship? After all, the ship never stopped to pick up anything like a pesky, emotionally attached face-hugger, so what’s the deal? Were they there all along? Were Bower and Payton locked inside their room for a reason? In due time, these answers will be uncovered, and the revelation will be satisfactory to a point. I just wish the point would’ve gone further.

I enjoy these intimate, small cast science fiction films. Just three months ago we had Duncan Jones’ Moon, an even smaller film with similar themes and issues. In my review of that film, I wrote, “ And yet, when we, the viewers, arrive, Sam looks to have come down with a severe case of cabin fever. What’s with the vision of another version of himself, in full astronaut gear, emerging from his bed and trying to drag him into a dark and bottomless pit? Must be a hallucination.” Cabin fever plays a crucial role in this film as well, specifically for Dennis Quaid’s character. What is real and who is real are questions which he must always ask. I know the feeling. Once I was grounded and thought I saw Penelope Cruz in my room. I subsequently decided to ground myself for an extra day.

But Bower goes through problems of his own. He comes across dead bodies of former crew members, and he keeps having visions of a girlfriend who may or may not have been left behind on Earth. No time to worry about that now, however. He must find his way to the all important room where he can fly the ship, but it’s unfortunately proving quite a tough find. The film lets you play along, never giving you the answers before the characters. Each scene provides another clue.

The film is also visually impressive. Was this movie shot with green screens or on a set, I kept asking myself. Maybe both, blended together perfectly. There are some shots (where we look out the window of a certain female’s room, for example) that look too good to be real. The spaceship appears to be endless, with enough hidden passageways that would take years upon years to sort through. How much of the ship is a set and how much of it is stored on someone’s hard drive? You really feel lost along with these characters. Put another way, the ship is an endless, claustrophobic maze; you expect to see Jack Torrance running around with an axe, looking for his son.

If you're easily grossed out, this film may not be your cup of tea. It isn't overly graphic, but there are some quick brutal moments that may make you wince or jump, as they are intended to do. At one point, a creature, the supposed warrior of the group, drives a spear right down into a helpless man's head. Ouch. Remember that giant slug like creature that sucked out a soldier's brain in Starship Troopers? It's kind of like that without the sucking. There's also a quick throat slitting towards the end of the film that is brutal enough to keep makeup and effects students happy for a long time. In fact, all of the bloody and gloppy makeup used are appropriately dirty, slimy, and ugly. Good, I say.

It's also quite refreshing to see actors/stuntmen play the creatures instead of cheap, lifeless, CGI pixels. Everyone has to eat (and in this movie, everyone has to eat humans). There's a scene where Bower has to quietly crawl over — and sometimes, on top of — the sleeping deadly deformities. A lot of tension is obviously present here, and what helps build that tension is the fact that the creatures are breathing, flesh and blood filled actors. They are really in the shot, and that helps tremendously.

Pandorum is a creative film, a murder mystery with impending murder, that starts off with two men trapped in a room without any idea as to how they got there. That reminds me of the premise for Saw five years ago, another film with a smart concept played efficiently. It doesn't insult your intelligence (or assume you do not have any), and the story doesn't cheat to crawl to a conclusion. I expected a Planet of the Apes type ending, with our characters still stuck on Earth. What we get is somewhat similar, somewhat different, and while it doesn't completely work, it is still thought out enough to be a commendable disappointment. Pandorum features creatures on the loose, but they do not steal the spotlight away from our human characters. That is a rare feat, and one which Christian Alvart should most certainly be proud of.

The 411: Pandorum is a good sci-fi horror film that is intimate enough to be worth seeing. It is very quiet and slowly (but not boringly) paced, and it takes its time uncovering all the secrets aboard the ship. The characters' amnesia at the beginning of the picture is clever and helps to put the audience on an even playing field; we only know as much as they do. Although the last ten minutes or so are a little too effects driven, the overall story and idea of the film are well thought out. It's not a masterwork or anything, but it tries to be. I'm glad they put forth the effort.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]