Pandorum
Starring:
Dennis
Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue
Running
time: 108 minutes
Year:
2009
Directed
By: Christian
Alvart
Written By: Travis Milloy
What happens when you awaken on an abandoned ship in
space alone? Is the simple premise of Christian Alvart's Pandorum. Starring Ben Foster and Dennis Quad as the two men who
find themselves on an abandoned space craft with no memory of what has
happened. This dark tale should leave you feeling lonely, claustrophobic, and
above all frightened about the prospect of having no way of survival.
We open with Bower (Foster) who awakens from hyper
sleep and finds himself wandering a space craft's flight deck alone. After
freshening himself up and attempting to remember what he is doing there he finds
another man, Payton (Quaid), who has also just woken with no memory of how they
got there. With all doors having been sealed shut due to the failing power
Bower climbs through a ventilation shaft, breaking himself into the main decks
of the ship, in order to get answers and turn the power back on. Meanwhile
Payton stays behind in order to guide him through the dark corridors via the
control computer that can be powered manually. Whilst searching the ship Bower
comes across others who have also awoken to the silence, however it doesn't
take long before Bower finds himself meeting the one reason the ship is so
desolate. With monster like killing machines hot on his tail Bower, and his new
team, must be lead by Payton through the dark tunnels of the ship in order to
regain power from the nuclear reactor before they are killed by the mutations
breathing down their neck.
The mood of the film is very dark, chilling, and
silent. When the film opens we spend several minutes alone with Bower and the
silence with him is almost overbearing. Instantly you find yourself in the
midst of space alone with him. Again when he ventures into the heart of the
ship we hear nothing but silence until the high pitch screeching of the zombie
like monsters startles you. The cinematography by Wedigo von Schultzendorff
highlights the light amongst the dark and gives us a futuristic feel to
proceedings. The vision of the film is actually one of the only highlights as
much of the rest of it doesn't feel as good. The characters aren't very fleshed
out, we learn very little about them and at times failed to really care if they
survived or not. The script is poor, especially some of the dialogue. At one
point a character says 'I remember last time I woke from hyper sleep I couldn't
remember anything for months.' That's funny you just remembered that!! The
story also fails to grip you and at times it is hard to follow where the
characters are going. The dark corridors actually work against this part of the
film.
The story is a major issue with the film. The
intrigue and tension at the beginning was infectious but as soon as we were
introduced to the zombies in space I found myself losing interest. It was a
mash of many films put into space. At first it felt like we may get an Alien type film but ended up getting The Descent crossed with Event Horizon. Throughout the film we
also see many flashbacks which seem to have very little need to be there,
especially considering by the end they had little to do with the story. The
overall reason for the story turns out to be quite an interesting idea, I won't
give it away here, but it ends in such a poor way as if it is all a happy
ending which my interpretation of the film is that it is not. The B story has
us learning about a space paranoia called pandorum; see the title comes in
somewhere, which sends people into a mad state when they believe that everyone
around them is there to kill them. This is constantly mentioned throughout and
the problem with this is that is then becomes slightly obvious what is
happening in one strand of the story. The finale of the film is also a major
let down with things coming together quite poorly and with none of it ever
really making sense. There are two stories going on throughout, in a much
bigger story, but they seem to become confused with each other by the end.
This is not a film I would recommend. Of course it
will have its fans out there but for me this was a poorly executed movie. The
tense scenes from the beginning soon dispersed and it became something we have
seen before. The performances weren't particularly good either with Quaid
delivering his poor lines poorly, and Foster seeming wrongly cast as the hero.
The film is packed with problems and issues and it is one I fail to see what
the point actually was. Not much makes sense by the end and the finale becomes
too easy and happy for a film that started so dark and morbid. Overall a
disappointing piece of work which shows why it struggled at the box office,
meaning a sequel is not going to be made. Phew!
1.5 / 5
Next film to review: THE WRESTLER
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