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Liked District 9? Here's why you'll like Pandorum
Pandorum is what you get when you hire Wes Craven to direct Solaris: a grindhouse exploitation flick with a brainy, European sensibility. Pandorum might help solidify 2009 as a banner year in genre cinema, because it, along with Duncan Jones' Moon and Neill Blomkamp's District 9, are actual science fiction movies, with real speculations and plots that are built logically upon those initial speculations, and not just action movies with science fictional window dressing.
Pandorum has a vibe like a lot of good 1970s SF, both written and filmed ... that sense of gloom and doom that bubbled under the surface of flicks like Silent Running and in the writing of Tiptree and George R.R. Martin.
Pandorum, as hashed out by screenwriter Travis Milloy and director Christian Alvart (who a few years back made the really interesting German thriller Antibodies), starts out with a great hook: A guy named Bower (Ben Foster) wakes up in a hypersleep chamber on a trashed spaceship, with suspended-animation-induced amnesia and no idea what has happened to the rest of the crew. He thaws out a guy named Payton (Dennis Quaid), who logically should be his CO and who also has a case of deep-freeze-wonky memory.
It would be a shame to tell you more than that, as Pandorum's plot is centered on a process of discovery as Bower ventures out into the ship. The narrative flows really quickly as the pieces of various puzzles are fit into place. Truth to tell, some of the discoveries are kinda groaners, but this doesn't derail the flow of the movie as a whole. Alvart cuts the movie so that the sense of discovery and the frequent action scenes give Pandorum a NASCAR-frantic sense of constant forward movement. There are wonky moments of plotting (the final resolution relies on a bit of dumb luck) and a couple of dead spots that seem thrown in less for the sake of story than as opportunities to provide needed pieces of the overall puzzle. Don't get me started on the maudlin flashbacks. But the pace of the movie, and the way in which the clues as to what went wrong on this spaceship keep coming, are so smooth that these bumpy stretches of road don't feel too rough.
Old-skool geeks will see some familiar territory in Pandorum. The "Big-Ass Generation Starship on Which Things Have Gone Wrong" was a pretty well-worn concept when Harlan Ellison and Ed Bryant published Phoenix Without Ashes (based on Ellison's original pilot script for the series The Starlost) almost 35 years ago. But fortunately, Milloy and Alvart add a few fresh spins to the way Pandorum uses these old concepts so that they don't feel too stale.
And on its most basic level, Pandorum promises you a whole bunch of scary stuff happening on a bitchin' spaceship, and it delivers. Alvart is a damned fine filmmaker. The use of color, framing, shadow and the aforementioned whiplash editing are all great. The ship itself feels real in the way the Nostromo in Alien felt real (and yes... because this is an SF/horror movie made after Alien, there is an obligatory vent shaft scene). There is a truly nightmarish quality to the scary moments that could teach straight-up horror directors a thing or two. Pandorum, despite its shortcomings, kinda rocks.
By Amanda at 11:19 AM ON 09/25/09
You know, I wasn't too interested in seeing this one in theaters, figured I would just wait until later since it didn't really hook me as anything but run-of-the-mill, but now you have me wondering. Good review for making me second-guess my initial judgment.
By Andy Thornton at 11:21 AM ON 09/25/09
We were lucky to see this at a preview recently, and its a great movie. Fast paced and full of chills.
Would highly recommend it :-)
By Cheapshot at 12:06 PM ON 09/25/09
Agreed with Amanda... Horror films, whether in space or otherwise have been unable to meet or exceed the "Alien" level of entertainment. So I am skeptical from the start. But a good review has changed my mind.
By Anachronite at 12:19 PM ON 09/25/09
Wow I had already chalked this one up to "do waste my time" as the previews made it look like your typical dumb ass horror movie. No you have me wanting to go see it. The question is whether or not to trust your review. After all this is Sci-Fi Wire, brought to us by the idiots that thought of SY-FY. I'll take the chance this one time, but if it sucks I won;t be such a sucker next time. :o)
By Nat at 12:27 PM ON 09/25/09
What, no mention of Event Horizon? I'm kinda surprised there's no lawsuit, considering how heavily Pandorum appears to "borrow" from Event Horizon's plot, cinematography, set design, and atmosphere.
I'll still go see it, since even a cheap copy of Event Horizon would still be better than most of the movies that've come out this year, I'm just surprised the obvious hasn't been pointed out yet.
By MikeMarano at 1:01 PM ON 09/25/09
@nat No one has pointed it out, because Event Horizon writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson *produced* Pandorum! He's not going to sue himself, no matter how much extra money that would mean for his lawyers. ;)
By CRDFilm at 2:06 PM ON 09/25/09
I have to say I didn't see the big twist coming and the suspense did keep me on edge for a good part of the movie. However, the director had to shoot any action scene in that horrible, extreme close-up, handheld style that has become so prevalent in action films today. To me, that just says you're a lazy or uncertain director who doesn't know how to stage a scene so you have to hide your faults by not allowing the audience to actually see anything. Also, some of the audio mixing was so bad that I couldn't hear dialog over the music and sound effects (though that could have been the theater's problem). An interesting, if not great, film. Kind of reminded me of SUNSHINE with monsters.
By Mystok at 2:15 PM ON 09/25/09
It still looks like an amped up version of Alien Cargo. Don't get me wrong, Alien Cargo is a fairly good movie and a better source to steal plot points than some of the movies out there.
By MUADIB at 3:12 PM ON 09/25/09
I'LL POINT OUT AN OBVIOUS..NAT...YOU KINDA LIKE EVENT HORIZON TOTHE POITN OF BEING ....OBSESSED...MAYBE?
By mykl at 4:36 PM ON 09/25/09
If they would have made it more of a thriller and took out all the cheesy action it would have been better but still all in all… if you have no expectations of it being remotely good than it is not bad.
Worth a matinee viewing, nothing more.
By Jamal D b at 10:10 PM ON 09/25/09
I'll agree with Nat, Event Horizon was brilliant in ways seldom seen by anything released lately, let's hope Pandorum follows the classic black hole ship's superclass.
By chris at 5:35 PM ON 09/26/09
Reminds me of Aliens. Glad to see Dennis Quaid working and enjoying life as an actor, but I'm not thrilled about this. I've seen the ads for it and it looks interesting, just because Quaid is in it, but for the most part it seems like it's taking the path of least resistance and going with the flow of recent monster flicks and psych thrillers. If you've seen ten you've seen them all. I'll catch it on cable. Can't see spending $8 a head for this one.
By chris at 5:40 PM ON 09/26/09
By the way, I enjoyed District 9 for the plot and realistic sci-fi adventure. I didn't like the Cloverfield/ Blair Witch look of the film. The hand held camera action was pretty awful and made most viewers steer away from watching it due to the jiggling of the camera. Yes, it lent a certain realistic viewpoint to the film, but I think that it was written well enough to avoid using that. People, please stop making the jiggling films, it makes people sick.
By ETo at 8:58 AM ON 09/27/09
Enough Event Horizon references already, the 2 movies have very little in common. There is space and a big ship, that is where it ends. Go see the movie before pigeon holing it.
By Cerati at 7:07 AM ON 09/28/09
Don’t pigeonhole the movie, there really is more to oh it’s just like alien, or event horizon. I saw it this weekend and to tell you the truth it is different type of movie and story. I left wanting to know more about the ship Elysium, the design the scope of the project. I have read so many negative remarks at IMDB and other film blogs. I loved it.
By Fanboy79 at 8:31 AM ON 09/28/09
I saw this saturday and it was great even better than I thought it was going to be.
By Artifex at 11:59 AM ON 09/28/09
I saw this just yesterday, and I came out very pleased with the experience. I had a couple of gripes, like most of the creatures were fairly generic, with the notable exception of the one with the vertical slash in his face, and what I thought were needless displays of martial arts. Still, it's a great addition to the genre.
Anyone who like this and hasn't played Dead Space needs to run out and buy that NOW, and vice versa. This was as close to Dead Space in the theater as I think it was possible to get without copyright violation.
By Levendis47 at 4:20 PM ON 10/02/09
Wait... I thought "Event Horizon" was what you get when you let Wes Craven direct Solaris?
And, man, THAT SUCKED... One of the few movies I walked out of it my life... I'll take the pass on Pandorum... maybe a good Netflix download when the time comes.
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Levendis47:
Wait... I thought "Event Horizon" was what you get when you let Wes Craven direct Solaris? And, man, THAT SUCKED.....More »