Pandorum's box isn't worth opening (Pandorum (DVD))

Member Name: dididave

Product:	Pandorum (DVD)
Date:	15/10/09 (51 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good performances from the two leads, theoritically has the ingredients.

Disadvantages: Poorly executed horror, too dark, confused plot.

Corporal Bower and Lieutenant Payton are woken up dazed and confused from suspended animation. On a ship seemingly floating through space, they set about recovering the gaps in their memory and restoring power to the ship's system. However, as Payton directs Bower through the bowels of the ship towards the ship's core it would appear something else inhabits the ship, something deadly.

"Pandorum" is an incredibly contrived space horror. Borrowing heavily from pretty much every sci-fi thriller you can think of, most notably "Alien" and "Event Horizon", this is a bog standard turn off the lights affair that offers nothing new. Irritatingly, the concept has also been done a million times better in both the aforementioned movies amongst others.

This is a film that lives and dies on the idea that if you add all the elements a sci-fi fan would like to see, it will inevitably result in a great end product. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell them that simply throwing all the great ideas from previous sci-fi horrors into one movie will not provide a winning formula.

This is a film that simply doesn't work, it tries hard and includes all the things you would expect to see in this sort of picture. You certainly get the claustrophobic atmosphere you would expect in the cramped corridors of a spaceship and the flickering lights and amnesia are all staples of this genre. However, simply turning down the lights is not enough and rather than enhancing the suspense, I was left confused and disorientated by what was supposed to be going on. This was especially the case during the numerous and somewhat inevitable chase scenes which rely a lot on cutting to and from characters as they pelt along corridors towards the inevitable "can they close the door in time" conclusion.. This fragmented approach is supposed to build tension but I just found myself getting motion sickness!

The action remains confusing throughout and is not helped by a dual plot line of space madness (hence the film title) and mutated aliens on the rampage. This leads to lots of confusion as to which of these plot threads are supposed to be important with the end result being that neither of them seem to be. Are they supposed to be linked? If they are I must have lost something in the translation from screen to brain. A shame as the film main strength and only saving grace comes in Dennis Quaid's performance as Payton and Ben Foster's as Bower. Both play convincing and likeable roles in which you do will them to survive. In fact, the only true point of intrigue is the way a trapped Payton guides Foster with varying levels of success through the ship via radio. Their assured and vulnerable performances as they battle with madness are at odds with a film that is full of sci-fi cliché.

Neither one thing or another, "Pandorum" lacks the jumpy scares of "Alien" and the sheer unnerving terror of "Event Horizon" and ends up being nothing but a pale imitation of the two. Two good lead performances are overshadowed by a lack of suspense and a confused plot. A film that would have benefited massively from someone turning the bloody lights on for a bit, "Pandorum" is an example of a film that has all the ingredients but gets the recipe all wrong. Avoid!

Summary: A pale imitation on other films in the genre.