Well, it was a bit odd..
Pandorum (2009)
Directed By: Christian Alvart
The Prologue
So apparently space is the place! Or so it would seem, seeing as how this is the second day in a row we’ve had a space film here. Pandorum, came out in 2009 and while I recall the adds and trailers and all that stuff for it, I never got around to seeing it until now. It does however have Dennis Quaid in it. And I think we all like Dennis Quaid don’t we? Regardless what we have here is a fine little sci-fi film for what it is. It also seems to have a few other elements to it that make it a little note worthy as well. So, lets break this down shall we?
The Movie
Two crew members are stranded on a spacecraft and quickly – and horrifically – realize they are not alone. Two astronauts awaken in a hyper-sleep chamber aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. It’s pitch black, they are disoriented, and the only sound is a low rumble and creak from the belly of the ship. They can’t remember anything: Who are they? What is their mission? With Lt. Payton staying behind to guide him via radio transmitter, Cpl. Bower ventures deep into the ship and begins to uncover a terrifying reality. Slowly the spacecraft’s shocking, deadly secrets are revealed…and the astronauts find their own survival is more important than they could ever have imagined.
So people are waking up after being asleep for far too long in space and they have trouble remembering stuff and they have a mental disease called, Pandorum going around as well. Now it takes a bit to get things really up and running, but one thing you’ll notice off the bat is there’s a few things that do not seem to make a lot of sense. These things fail to make sense even after things get off and running. I guess we can blame the fact that most people seem to have a touch of Pandorum for why people are randomly fighting one another, but there still are a lot of things that doesn’t seem to add up.
One good thing about this movie is the fact it does at times seem a lot like, The Decent. Only instead of a cave, all this stuff is taking place on a spaceship, but it’s still got a lot of the same stuff and vibe going on. There’s even a few scenes that seem a lot like ones from The Decent. And if you are going to borrow from other movies, why not go for a good one right? There is some action and there’s some blood, and they even have an Asian man walking around (played by MMA star Cung Le) who doesn’t speak a word of English but understands everyone else speaking English just fine!
There’s a few random twists, one being the ending, and they do waste a couple of really good actors, but overall I’d say this movie wasn’t that bad. I also think the ending reminded me a lot of a video game ending I’ve seen before, but for the life of me can’t recall the name of now. Now it’s by no means “Alien”, but what is right? If you want some action and an half way interesting plot, you could do a lot worse than Pandorum. I’m sure some people just won’t get that much out of it, but it’s perfectly acceptable for a watch sometime.
The Conclusion
It’s far from perfect, but it’s very watchable. You’ll notice a lot of good actors here, and some sadly don’t hang around on screen long enough. The film doesn’t over stay it’s welcome too much, and it does have a pretty cool visual there for the ending. I’d say it’s just above average enough to watch.
The Rating (6.5/10)
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