Pandorum
(2009 movie)
You know, in some ways I feel a bit like writing this review is a waste of time and effort. On the other hand, it's a movie that, as far as I could tell, hasn't gotten all that much exposure, so I'd like to kind of put the word out there, even if this isn't a very good movie. Actually the only other review of this movie I've seen bashes it by saying
The Descent did everything this movie did only better, and really I don't think that's very fair. Really both movies are only okay movies – neither especially bad but definitely not good either. I'll get to
The Descent in its own review, but as far as it comes to this movie, well, like I said, it's an okay movie, and basically it's every sci-fi horror you've ever seen.
Saying this movie is derivative is entirely fair, because it does take a lot from so many other sources.
The Descent, yes, but also
Alien (like every other sci-fi horror since 1979),
The Cave (which was better than
The Descent),
Pitch Black (which was pretty good for a B-movie),
The Time Machine, and arguably a bit from the
Lord of the Rings film franchise. That being said, it's actually an interesting movie to watch, with just enough suspense and mystery to keep me watching it through the laughably corny parts to the fairly predicable end.
The movie follows Corporal Bower from the moment he's rudely awakened from a dream, alone in a cryo-tube that's in a dark room. He also conveniently has no memory of his identity, but knows that not only is he on a ship, but enough about the ship to explain to Dennis Quaid that they're probably screwed unless they can fix the ship's reactor.
Oh, yeah, Dennis Quaid is totally in this one, and he's actually pretty good in it. He's no Michael Ironside, but he's still pretty good in any role he's in, even if it's sometimes in a "so bad it's hilarious" kinda way.
To the movie's credit, though, it does a fairly decent job of setting things up and revealing a little bit of information at a time. Bower goes on a little adventure through the air ducts and stumbles into Mordor.
He comes face to face with these Orc things that are so obviously not human that they obviously have to be. Bower at first puts forward the idea that these things are aliens, but if you honestly believe that even at this point, you obviously haven't seen many movies like this. And speaking of, I can't help but notice this trend in a lot of sci-fi's lately to make everything spindly and full of spikes. Actually those Orcs kind of match the ship, they're on, the
Elysium, which looks like something John Eves (who designed the space octopus in Abrams Trek) would have drawn up. Oops, spoilers...
So after his first encounter with the space-Orcs, Bower figures out that the things want to eat him, and that he's actually trapped on the
Nostromo, or basically the set of so many other "space" ships since
Alien came out. Apparently filming things in a factory setting where things are grimy, greasy, and full of dangling chains and wide open spaces makes things "dark and gritty" and somehow more realistic even though it’s supposed to be a space ship. Anyway, despite the fact he's been mugged by a hot German woman named Nadia, seen a dead guy caught up in a cannibal trap, and nearly been been eaten, he has to press on through the entire ship to get back to the reactor so he can pull a Ctrl-Alt-Del on it. Along the way he meets some other people, one of whom gets eaten, another who actually rescues him, and Nadia again, who seems to only be there to inevitably hook up with him. Nothing quite like greasy cleavage and a chick who will "fucking cut your ass" I guess.
So even though this woman has no reason to go anywhere with him, she just decides to anyway, after first revealing that the
Elysium is a technologic Ark, carrying the genetic material necessary to completely pollute the planet their ship was sent to colonize with other life from Earth. But, hey, the reactor's either going to explode or just go completely dead, so why not tag along, I guess...
After dodging more Orcs in slightly better lighting, the trio makes its way through the most inefficiently designed cargo bay I've ever seen that holds a crap-load of other cryo-tubes, complete with the obligatory grate over a massive fan, which is apparently where the Orcs toss the remains of the people they've eaten, and take dumps while they're at it. Naturally Madia and Bower both fall right into it, and for added bonus points they have to actually hide in it up to their eye balls while an Orc tries to decide if there's something down there or not. I can't help but note again how so many movies have done something like this, no doubt excusing it by saying it highlights what people will do to survive. To me, it just comes off as a form of porn, meant to gross out the audience while also apparently getting some people off on this kind of thing.
So after our happy couple crawls out of the filth, they end up in the obligatory fight with one of the Orcs just to show the audience how hard it is to kill one of these things while miraculously not ending up with a serious injury themselves in the process, all so they can end up face to face with the nose-less Orc leader who was apparently just there to enjoy the show. So Bower, Nadia, and the Asian man who came to Bower's rescue but can't speak English end up running into another seemingly normal human, who not only conveniently has a recording of the message that set everything in motion, but kindly explains everything that happened between when the flight crew on duty received a message from Earth that told them they were all that was left and when the movie takes place. He even has some nice artwork to act as visual aids for his story.
"Long ago, in the before time..."
The self-described chef is even nice enough to finish the story even after he's knocked out the trio, which he follows up by suspending them by the feet. He's even such a nice guy that he explains how this was all a trap he set up and how he's going to eat the three of them. Bower actually manages to talk his way out of this, the reactor once again coming to his rescue. This is frankly the most ridiculous part of this movie, not only because of the exposition, but because of how everything plays out. It really is a cliché storm.
In the mean time. Dennis Quaid has come face to face with himself, or rather Corporal Gallo, as he crawls naked and covered with grease out of another hose-filled air duct. It really isn't that hard to figure out that "Lieutenant Payton" is actually Gallo, who went insane upon hearing that they were the last of humanity and that Earth had magically disappeared in one day, so I don’t consider it much of a spoiler to tell you this, even though the movie tries to treat it like a big twist M. Night Shyamalan might be proud of. This is the next most ridiculous part of the film, because after the big reveal, which takes the form of Payton/Gallo fighting to inject himself with a sedative, not only does he not fall asleep, but he decides he's perfectly cool with the fact that he's completely insane.
The whole premise of the movie is actually based on this made-up condition/disease called Pandorum, which is basically just space insanity. Bower is shown to have some of the symptoms right from the start of the movie, and Payton/Gallo shows them soon after he meets the younger version of himself and remembers that he's a crazy frakker. Apparently anything can bring Pandorum on, though, because after finding out Earth was gone and the 60,000 people on the ship were all that were left of humanity, the first thing he does is to kill the other two members of the flight crew that are on duty with him. He then declares himself a god and goes about torturing the rest of the crew, you know, like Captain Janeway.
He eventually gets bored and goes back to sleep, but not before giving a bunch of the colonists an injection of magic juice that was meant to help the colonists adapt to the planet they were colonizing but instead made them "adapt" to the ship, making them all turn into cannibalistic Orcs.
Oh, and the ship has actually already finished its 123 year journey (gee, wonder where they came up with that figure) long ago, and has been sitting on the planet for 900 years, having landed in one of its oceans. This is revealed when Payton/Gallo opens up the pointless blast shield that had been closed when everyone finally made it onto the bridge, and the characters are able to see phosphorescent sea life outside after an initial "shock" of not seeing any stars outside. Then Bower completely loses it, blasting a random panel because he thinks an Orc is coming out of it, sending it flinging into the big glass canopy. Naturally the glass breaks and floods the room, along with apparently the rest of the ship, because I guess space ships don't have separate sections that can be sealed off from one another in case there's a hull breach.
Thanks to the hull breach, the ship ejects all remaining cryo-tubes from the ship, including Bower's, which he quickly crammed Nadia into. This then reveals that the ship isn't actually in the deep ocean, but rather a shallow that's right next to shore, which just doesn't fit at all with what was just shown. The helpful text on the screen then explains that there are a whopping 1,213 people left, which basically just means that there's incest in humanity's future, because I'm pretty sure this isn't a genetically diverse enough group of individuals left to avoid it. Oh, and let's not forget that our hero Bower has a full-blown case of space crazy – sounds like a happy ending to me.
Okay, as horrible as this movie might sound, it actually isn't really all that bad. I'd even be generous enough to say that it's more interesting than most other movies like it, including
The Descent. It's worth a watch, although once is probably enough. 5/10.