Film Review: Pandorum
Pandorum (2009)
Theatrical Release Date: September 25, 2009
Directed By: Christian Alvart
Cast: Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue, Cung Le
Review By: Marc Patterson
Pandorum is going to immediately draw comparisons to Alien and Event Horizon. It’s inevitable: the film is a nightmare set in the claustrophobic confines of deep space; however, after giving this a good viewing I might more aptly put it in the ballpark of Pitch Plack, The Descent, and oddly enough, (get ready for this)… Wall-E.
The Elysium is an unintentional Noah’s Ark, built to save the human race. Earth has suffered from severe overpopulation and massive depletion of natural resources. Deep space exploration efforts have managed to discover another earth-like planet to which a select group of humans has set out to reach in an unprecedented one-way ticket ride. Once underway, the captain and flight crew learn that Earth has disappeared – that it literally has been destroyed. The weight of the responsibility that they alone carry what is left of the human race causes hell to break loose on board and Pandorum, a form of extreme mental psychosis caused by deep space travel, sets in.
The film proper erupts with an ear-piercing scream. Meet Corporal Bower (Ben Foster). Bower has abruptly awoken from deep space hibernation. Suffering from memory loss caused by the sleep, he thrashes about to free himself from his chamber. We follow his frantic disorientation as he struggles to discover who he is, where he is, and why. Trapped in a dark cell without a way out, he tries to awaken another sleeping passenger – Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid). Once awake, Payton – a cool, collected, think first/act second type of Officer – acclimatizes himself to the situation at hand quicker than Bower, and makes sense of what is going on. They are members of a flight crew that should have been woken for their shift, but for some reason it never happened. Power on the ship is shaky at best, and they can’t get out of their cell to access the bridge. Something indeed has gone horribly wrong. In an attempt to open the door from the outside, Bower makes his way through an air vent into the body of the ship where the horror only intensifies. There’s no indication of who on the ship is still alive, if anyone.
Bower, who, despite his memory loss, retains a photographic like memory of the ship’s technical specs, needs to get to the reactor to reset the power to the ship. Guided by Payton through the maze of darkness, he eventually meets with a couple of other survivors: a woman named Nadia (Antje Traue), and a non-English speaking warrior-type named Manh (Cung Le), who both are more foe than friend. Eventually Bower makes them realize they’re going to need to work together to survive and save the ship.
Complicating the matter are mutated creatures who are loose on the ship, and who incessantly hunt and cannibalize upon humans (especially enjoying a hot meal when a human wakes up out of their hyper-sleep chambers). They bear striking similarities to those cave dwellers from The Descent. Who they are, and how they got to be that way isn’t explained very well up front, and it’s not really important to the story, even though their origin is eventually revealed. What is important is to keep quiet and run like hell if you hear that primal clicking.
The story at this point divides itself into two primary battlefields: one is a psychical gauntlet that Bower, Nadia, and Manh must endure, and the other is a psychological face off that emerges between Payton and a young Corporal named Gallo, who makes his way into Payton’s cell, and is obviously shaken by the horrors he has endured.
Frankly, if I’m going to cut right to the chase, there’s not much going on beneath the surface of Pandorum, nor is this original in any way. This is purely a top-level visceral experience meant to run an audience through a white-knuckled ringer of jump scares and darkness-induced fear. Knowing in advance that Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Death Race) was producing the film helped set my expectations accordingly. And to be quite fair, I wasn’t at all let down by the lack of depth or intelligence to the film.
The underlying attempt at sub-text regarding our abuse of the environment and overpopulation, which leads to the ultimate destruction of the planet, isn’t original either, and unfortunately is executed quite poorly. What it does provide to the film is character motivation for something more than self-preservation. Our characters are now in a race to save more than just a few passengers or themselves. The very existence of all mankind, and for that matter any history of the existence of the planet Earth, is at stake. This leads the film towards a rather foregone conclusion, but one that provides some refreshing twists and turns along the way. The real tragedy is that insofar as sub-text is concerned, Wall-E actually did a pretty good job tackling the same subject matter in a far more intelligent way than Pandorum ever hinted at, just without so much of the mutated cannibals.
It’s Foster who is the true hero of the film, whose part as Corporal Bower was as fitting to him as his flight crew uniform. That’s not to take away from the effort of Quaid, who delivered a performance worthy of his billing, but ultimately it is Foster who bore the weight of carrying this film and making it worth sitting through the 108 minute run time. Accompanying him is Antje Traue, who, while she was supposed to give the film some much needed umph as a strong female character, proved that she’s no Rhona Mitra or Milla Jovavich. Her biggest contribution to the film may have very well been her heaving bosom that seemed to dominate every scene she’s in. Not that I’m complaining. She’s a capable actress, but had a character that was underutilized and underdeveloped.
And underdevelopment is the crux upon which the film is ultimately judged. None of the characters are given the level of depth they could have been, making the story nothing more than a simple adrenaline-fueled race against time. The monsters that were meant to add to the fear factor were revealed in full far too early on, which diminished their power to incite any real fear in the viewer, and the camera just didn’t linger long enough when and where it mattered.
Having dispensed with all my misgivings about the film, I’d advise you to take all of this criticism with a grain of salt becaus e I genuinely enjoyed this film. It is possible not to hate Pandorum. We often talk about how a viewer’s expectations can make or break the cinema experience, and here that really rings true. If you walk into the theater thinking you’re going to see the next greatest sci-fi horror film since Alien, you’re going to be highly disappointed. But if you’re looking for a simple thrill ride and nothing more, then Pandorum delivers the goods.
