Pandorum Review
Sep 27, 2009 by Kofi OutlawWelcome to the first real disappointment of the fall 2009 movie season.
Short Version: Pandorum is a mess of a movie that squanders a lot of potential.
Screen Rant Reviews Pandorum
Movies often fail for varying reasons; sometimes the fatal flaw is in the script, sometimes the performances of the actors and sometimes because of the filmmaker’s total ineptness. Pandorum suffers from the latter case: director Christian Alvart has stitched together a patchwork of scenes that never really cohere into an actual movie. It’s a real tragedy, considering the potential this film had.
Pandorum opens as Corporal Bower (Ben Foster) wakes from cryogenic sleep aboard the starship Elysium (clever pun), whose mission is to ferry the last remnants of humanity to a new home planet. Bower wakes with all of his technical memory intact – how to operate the ship’s equipment, his military protocol – but his personal memories (events leading up to waking, such as where he is and how he got there) are all foggy. The room he wakes up in is sealed shut, and the ship’s power supply is in disarray due to a reactor malfunction. Soon after Bower gets on his feet, another cryo-pod pops open and Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid) joins party.
As the slimmer man, Bower heads up into the ventilation ducts bound for the ship’s reactor, which he seems to recall being assigned to operate and fix. With Payton guiding him via comm link, Bower enters the bowels of the ship and steps right into a living nightmare.
Monsters have taken over the ship (as if you didn’t already know). They are a species of pale white, inhumanly fast and strong warrior-killers, who spend their days hunting down the remaining humans and feasting on their bodies. After narrowly escaping the creatures, Bower meets a pretty ecologist-turned-survival expert named Nadia (Antje Traue) and a hunter-warrior named Manh (martial arts star Cung Le). After a violent introduction, the three humans band together to venture into the heart of the ship and reset the reactor before the vessel loses all power and the last of humanity dies in space.
While the field team is at work, Payton is running point from the cryo-chamber room and is eventually joined by Corporal Gallo (Cam Gigandet), who claims to be one of three crew members awake for the Elysium’s initial lift-off from Earth. According to Gallo, his crewmates became afflicted with the space madness known as “pandorum,” forcing Gallo to kill them all. The corporal tells Payton that Bower might also be suffering from pandorum, since he ventured out on a veritable suicide mission; for the good of the ship, Payton should seize control of the situation.
What unfolds from there is as predictable as your first guess and is even less exciting than you imagine. Like I said, this film is a patchwork of scenes that never feel connected, set in the framework of a film that never can decide which story to tell. Is the focus Bower and Payton’s mysterious pasts? Is it a survival story? Is it a psychological thriller about space madness (what the hell is “pandorum,” exactly)? And where did those creatures come from and what are they after? That last question does get some explanation (I think), but again, even the story behind the story is such a mess that I’m not quite clear what the explanation was. The shots and action sequences are often so incoherent that you’ll lose track of where YOU are or what is going on, just the characters themselves. It’s not a favorable position to put a movie audience in.
I will take a minute to absolve the stars of Pandorum of blame, since I don’t believe the fatal fault lies with them. Everybody on screen looks lost and/or confused most of the time (see pic above), and rightly so: most of the scenes look like they were shot with the director sitting up on a high chair yelling “Do This! Ok… Now do that!” in random increments over a megaphone while the actors just tried to keep up. There is no character development (we’re supposed to believe that these characters’ choices are their choices just because the film says they are), and worst of all, I didn’t like, dislike or connect in any way to even one character in this film, and when you can remain that indifferent for an hour and a half…
Instead of depth and meaning we get a mindless progression – Event A, followed by Event B, followed by Event C. Whatever happens, happens, with absolutely no regard for whether or not the occurrences are consistent with the characters, or whether or not they make any narrative sense. It’s storytelling in the dark. Poor Dennis Quaid suffers the brunt of it – his entire role is set in the cryo-room, engaged in increasingly ridiculous back-and-forths with Gigandet. God bless him – I would have shot myself.
As for the monsters – which Pandorum kept veiled in secrecy during the ad campaigns – they’re badass, but unfortunately just as hollow and flimsy as everything else in this movie. And oh man, by the time you get to the “twist ending” you’ll want to hunt down the filmmakers, bop them on the head with a rolled up newspaper and say, “Bad dog! No! No!”
In the end, there is nothing redeeming about this movie. For the first twenty minutes you’ll be handed the promise of a freaky sci-fi thriller (thank Foster, as usual, for making a lot out of a little), but after that, if you hang around for the rest of Pandorum, you too will be forced to watch that promise denigrate into cosmic slop.
Welcome to the first real disappointment of the fall 2009 movie season.
Our Rating:
1 out of 5
Around the web:
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Ah your right 790 I haven’t seen the film but from the horrible review I am not too excited in catching this one. It would have been better if they just made a Dead Space movie. This movie seems soo predictable and considering I know exact details thanks to the posts I shouldn’t be in for any surprises. I would rather see a movie like Moon that is more of a thinker which i still have yet to see but anxiously await. BTW this is totally random but I downloaded the new wolverine last night after reading that xmen 4 post. Who ever reviewed that movie and gave it over 1 star is on drugs. I haven’t been so disappointed in a marvel movie since the hulk back in like 03. This movie was absolute garbage in every way possible. I honestly had to skip scenes b/c it got too slow and I ended up falling asleep near the climax with deadpool. I could sit here and go in to detail about why i found it so abysmal but I don’t want to bore anyone im sure its been said. And I thought transformers 1 was sweet. I haven’t seen the new one but apparently it is worse so i can’t vouch for that. I’m just waiting for avatar…
Wow. Can’t wait to see this film now, nothing like a bit of controversy to boost ratings! I’ll watch it with a little trepidation with this review in mind but honestly if I took all reviews as gospel I’d never watch anything. Caveat emptor!
Just my 2p but… if all films are going to drop points for predictability and plot-holes then not many new films would get above 2 – 2.5 stars
I saw the movie last weekend. It wasn’t bad, but I think with a bit more money and another writer (Paul Anderson WTF get back to your Event Horizon Status) they should of made Dead Space the movie, because this was basically what it was. I’d give it a 2.75 because of the french girl and the gratuitous boob shots. ALL HALOs suck and are just Unreal Tournament clones.
@Mike E.
See here’s the problem – the more movies one reviews the more “twitchy” the ratings game gets because people start comparing ratings between films. It can be a pain in the butt to have to think about what one has given other films when rating a particular one so we try to do each one in a vacuum.
If you want to see our movie ratings by group, here are a few links for you:
http://screenrant.com/tag/0-star-movies/ (Yes, we really have this category)
http://screenrant.com/tag/1-star-movies/
http://screenrant.com/tag/2-star-movies/
http://screenrant.com/tag/3-star-movies/
http://screenrant.com/tag/4-star-movies/
http://screenrant.com/tag/5-star-movies/
Vic
I loved this movie
Ah, well you know for me, I know I have very different tastes than 790, he liked The Spirit and Terminator 3 and thought Battlefield Earth was “not bad.” So I know that in this argument that most likely I will have a more similar opinion to Kofi, even though I’ve disagreed with some of his opinions before… To each their own, I just know that 790′s own most of the time isn’t like my own, lol.
Just to clarify, “The Spirit” was mindless fun. See it drunk its great.
Now I only liked one scene from “Battlefield Earth” I’ve made this clear before,,, the scene at the end where the human hero guy teleported to the Alien’s homeworld and blew it up… I especially loved the orbital shot that showed the Alien homeworld Moon go flying off at hyper speed. Ah that was worth watching a few times in slo-mo,,,
Best scene in a crap film !!!
Yeah Ken I don’t think you would like Pandorum, it wouldn’t resonate with your personality. (IMO)
@790
I don’t drink, so…
I once knew this guy that collected neon beer signs. He had craploads of them.
Guy never had a beer in his life…
Hey Ken, this world is crazy!!!
@790
Wow, great idea for a new SR column: Movies to enjoy when you’re drunk.
Vic
You say go and I’ll write up the first review for ya.
I can start tonight ,,, where am I ?
@790
He just liked all of the pretty lights.
Actually Sam Jackson stole the film (ie: The Spirt)
And you won’t see me type that ever again as I can’t stand the Windu.
His light saber skills were downright horrible, lol.
Just don’t say that in front of Boba Fett, Ken,,,
You know, I’ve always thought that when Boba Fett picks up his father’s helmet that his head should have fallen out of there, lol, but I guess then it might have been rated R or at least PG13, lol.
(Sorry Pandorum fans, this is way off topic!)
^
Ken if you watch the scene again you will see the head fly out of the helmet during the shadow cut…
Its right after Windu nails him in the neck…
LOL, oh ok, oh well…
@ ken j
i dont think his head would have fallen out. i think the heat would’ve fused the head/neck and metal together
Pandorum has garnered thus far 7.6 out of 10 @ IMDB.
How many of those people never saw?
because if they had they would have said:
Hey I saw that in, or this was as good as…
————————————————–
Anything from the Alien franchise 6.1-8.8 out of 10
” ” ” “” Predator “” 4.9-7.8 out of 10
Pitch black 6.9 out of 10
Event Horizon 6.3 out of 10
I Am Legend 7.1 out of 10
Blade 2 6.6 out of 10
Underworld franchise 6.5-6.7 out of 10
Sunshine 7.3 out of 10
Blade Runner 8.3 out of 10
Logan’s Run 6.7 out of 10
Solaris 6.2-8 out of 10
Stalker 8.1 out of 10
Fight Club 8.8 out of 10
Memento 8.6 out of 10
Point being the average viewer of the genre is more tollarant than many here.
People that come here desire more than the average viewer.
Hey hudson, that sounds like one for the myth busters…
had the chance to read the script before the film was released – yep, it’s my job – and haven’t yet seen the movie. the script, actually, was quite good.
i think you got it right saying it’s a direction failure. shame.
@the old man
I generally try to review movies according to their genre, but like I said before I pretty much agree with Kofi’s review 100%. I probably would have given this 1.5/5.
BTW, on IMDB I think you have a contingent that likes to go in and either vote 10 or 1 just for the heck of it – I see lots of movies with big spikes on both those numbers.
Vic
Foster’s character develops well as the “Hero” of the film. He is consistent to that end even when faced with maddness and battling Quaid, thus we have character development. As the movie progresses so too does the maddess of the settings and creatures they are faced to battle. The movie does well to convince the audience of this.
I do agree that the movie seems to split on deciding what to become and this is where the main flaw lies. However, calling it mindless progression is an overstatement and a result of the wobbly action shots. The events unfold rather clearly.
Irregardless of the indecisiveness, I enjoyed the movie. I give it a 3.5/5 and recommend watching this fun film.
I agree with Justin..I give it a 3 just beacuse the middle was a little saggy. The film had some great shots. The scene where all the pods on the previous mission are ejected..really cool! I’m also with you on the observation that the film wasnt sure what it wanted to be, but EVENT HORIZON it was not! Now THAT was a film that had potential and dissolved into a steaming pile REAL QUICK. Compared to EH, Supernova, 2010, Aliens 4 and other huge pieces of sci-fi doo doo, this was worth my time. Give us a directors cut in the DVD and i think this will do well the second time around.
@ 790
Hey, we were so busy fighting it out that forgot to give you friendly tip: You need to out and get Fight Club and watch it. Like… Now.
WHOA!!!WHOA!!
Kofi!! The first rule of Fight Club is you NEVER talk about Fight Club. you breakin’ da rulz man.
I thought of it more as a point / counterpoint discussion.
Yeah I’m looking for “_____ Club” used.
I don’t get the bad reviews. I’m pretty tough on movies but really enjoyed Pandorum. Most fun I’ve had at a flick in ages. I think some of the bad reviews are from people that did not pay very good attention. 4.5 out of 5