Tuesday, 16 August 2011

Pandorum (2009) Dir: Christian Alvart


Sci-fi horror action is the name of the game here.

The plot:
Awakening from cryogenic suspension on board a spacecraft two astronauts, Bower (Ben Foster) and Payton (Dennis Quaid) have no recollection of either who they are or what they are doing on the ship. After managing to restart some of the systems, the pair discover a problem with the ship's reactor, so Bower heads out to do some jiggery-pokery with the technology and, along the way, discovers that the ship is in fact infested with cannibals, which may once have been human, but certainly aren't anymore.
Surviving a couple of skirmishes, Bower meets up with another survivor and, it turns out, he and Payton may have been asleep for a very, very long time.

It's a decent set-up, and has a genuine, authentic sci-fi feel, to the point that at times it seems as if you may be watching another film entirely.
That bit? Yeah, bit like Event Horizon.
That bit? Yeah, akin to Alien.
Even the set design is guilty of plagiarism, as the ship could be The Nostromo, The Nebuchadnezzar or the Event Horizon.
An issue here, also, is the plot momentum as, after the initial mystery is solved reasonably quickly, the driving force is the showdowns with the cannibals and, though the creature design is good, I absolutely hated the fast editing employed whenever they were on screen, giving the movie a real pop video feel, as popularised by the variable talents of Michael Bay and Tony Scott.
Still, the ending is decent enough.
Liked it, then, but wanted to like it a lot more.

3 out of 5

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