Movie Review: PANDORUM

In the future, humanity has overpopulated the Earth and conflicts over natural resources are common place. As a last resort, a giant spacecraft is sent off into space with a group of human settlers. Their mission? To colonize a new planet. On the way, though, the flight crew is awakened from hypersleep only to find their vessel on the verge of breaking down, the corridors overrun by mutated vampire-looking monster creatures and the crew suffering from the elusive "pandorum."

More than half of Pandorum is a well-done homage to Alien, complete with small cast, claustrophobic sets and a bleak outlook on the future. The other part is a hyper-kinetic, mumbling mess straight out of Resident Evil. (Paul W. S. Anderson from that franchise is a producer here.) And that combination of styles ultimately leads to a positive filmgoing experience tantalizingly close to having all the goods for a classic sci fi action thriller.

It should be mentioned fairly early on there are two twists in the film, both in the third act. Based on the genre's conventions, the audience should see both coming long before any of the characters figure them out. But to its great credit, Pandorum casts a spell over us, wisely diverting attention from the obvious to the not-so-obvious. One of the twists has been used time and again in both movies and television and it succeeds so wildly precisely because every clue the audience gets pointing to it can be rationalized away. Water near a nuclear reactor? That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Computer screens blowing up? Sure...any craft is going to break down. So when this plot point is introduced, the light bulb goes off over the audience's collective head. The other one, involving the pandorum disease, is more subtle, though, again, all the clues are sitting right there in front of us the entire time. (Pandorum is the outgrowth of hypersleep and being on a space craft for long periods of time. Symptoms include tremors and hallucinations.) Kudos to both the director and writer for getting the audience so throughly invested in the plot we gloss over these things.

Part of the reason these two twists catch us off guard is Pandorum's visual style as well as its production design. Production designer Richard Bridgland creates a world reminiscent of the Nostromo, with monochrome corridors and a general dirty feeling to them. This is a "used" universe with grit and grime in every corner of every room. Add into that distinctive lighting in every area of the ship-dirty green, fluorescent blue, even simple shadows-and it's not hard to be taken in with the look of the film. It also helps a lot of the production is shrouded in shadow, adding a thriller, mystery element.

Leads Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid are both advantages and liabilities. The story separates them for nearly the entire running time, forcing them to carry their own plot lines and the audience to split their attention between them. Foster's Bower is charged with rebooting the reactor in order to keep the ship going while Payton (Quaid) hangs out in the computer, directing him. Foster isn't a typical lead for the movie like this, a blonde, smaller framed man with no name recognition with the greater audience. However, he does what he needs to do with gusto and the right amount of emotion, particularly toward flashbacks of his wife. Bower ends up being compelling precisely because, like Ripley, he is a person thrown into a completely new situation. The problem, then, is with Quaid, who overplays his role from the get go. While we can accept some sense of trepidation from him, he is the flight commander. If anything, he needs to keep his head. (This is another clue in one of those twists.) The overacting comes to a head in the climax as he starts ranting and raving on the bridge.

At one point in the film, a character has a lengthy monologue which essentially tells the story since he woke up "years" ago. Fine, well and good. It's necessary information, to be sure. The issue is with the delivery. Quite simply, we can't figure out what this man is saying. And that's a pity, considering I'm sure it's vital information for the story. Or at least useful backstory. Some critics have commented on the occasionally clunky dialogue. I'd agree, to a certain extent but I'm certainly not going to harp on the issue. See, the thing about Pandorum is the dialogue surely came second to the plot...and possibly third to the visual look of the film. If the filmmakers truly were ambitious, the film could have been dialogue free.

The third act has the most problems as its forced to bring all the plot lines together with a major action sequence. To be blunt, there's too much for the film to handle. Think back to Alien's third act. What did it entail? Ripley fought an Alien at the last minute. She wasn't trying to understand the creature's origin or have to save the human race. Her only goal was saving herself and Jones the cat. That's the kind of streamlined ending Pandorum needed. The final shot, while uplifting based on a line of dialogue earlier in the film, is completely unneeded. And on the bridge, a vastly more compelling potential storyline is thrown away for no good reason which brings most of the movie into question. All in favor of what? Nothing, really. There isn't a big, emotional payoff. No slam bang action sequence which gets our adrenaline pumping. It's entertaining, good looking and even fun, but seems slapped together, as if no one had any idea how to bring the story to a close. Ultimately, that's sad, considering the promise in Pandorum.