Pandorum
Claustrophobic, dark, pungent and lonely are the halls of the ship in Pandorum. The visuals were stunning in all scenes ranging from the shots of the various planets, to the bridge of the broken ship. Director Christian Alvart does an excellent job of conveying the hopelessly frightening feeling of living in a prison while being the prey of the inmates. Although I dare not compare the two, Pandorum brings back memories to a sweaty and bloody Sigourney Weaver within the last 30 minutes in Ridley Scott’s Aliens. The tale is one of horror with a sprinkling of psychological mystery mixed in, from the very beginning you aren’t sure who to trust and you are given no semblance of hope. As cliché as it is to say this, Pandorum must not be missed by any fan of the Science Fiction genre.
While I found a few plot holes and extremely convenient situations to favor the protagonists, I would be doing the film a disservice to point all of them out. A few things that could have improved the movie a bit would have been: A little background on Nadia (Antje Traue) and Manh (Cung Le). A little more creativity than the stereotypical non English speaking Asian warrior, and the hot, sweaty babe with dual pistols, oops I mean knife in sway. One of the elements that could have easily broken this movie happened to be the biggest name in the cast; that of actor Dennis Quaid. While movie-goers all seem to recognize him, there is generally a lukewarm feeling for him. Still, Dennis Quaid does an excellent job as Payton and Ben Foster carries the movie well as Corporal Bower, ninja sidekick and femme fatale notwithstanding.
The direction and overall story of the movie was interesting enough without much action. The flashbacks combined with the dark stalking and heavy breathing set a freaky atmosphere. Beyond anything else that was working or not, the atmosphere and visuals were king. For Gamers out there, this movie will remind you a lot of Dead Space, the parallels are amazing. For people who want space action, this is no Aliens with space-aged Marines shooting smart guns and dodging acid dripping Xenomorphs. For hardcore Sci-Fi intellectuals you will find this to be a bit light and the convenient plot turns may throw you off. What you should expect from Pandorum is something of a thriller with a thick air of mystery. While the action was annoying (jerky hip camera that ran reminiscent of The Bourne Supremacy), the feeling of getting hopelessly chased is not lost. I would really love for people to stop shooting action scenes so close to the fighters, it isn’t pleasant to watch.
In the end the events put a relevant finish on a very dark and hopeless situation. My only wish was that the creatures, let’s call them mutants would have slowed down their chase a bit in order to let us (the viewers) have a bit of time with our heroes. For what it’s worth, Pandorum is a very solid addition to the Sci-Fi genre, offering up tribute to its predecessors in subtle ways and ending in a very satisfactory way.
STAR RATING: (7/10) ★★★★★★★★★★
Filed under Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller · Tagged with antje traue, cung le, dennis quaid, femme fatale, Science Fiction
