Pandorum, 2009
Bower (Ben Foster) and Payton (Dennis Quaid) jolt awake from long-term sleep pods aboard a ship in deep space heading for an Earth-like planet to start a new settlement. But the ship seems to be malfunctioning, and the crew who was supposed to wake them for their shift is nowhere to be found. The two part ways with Payton manning a control room and Bower heading for the ship's reactor. Bower must contend with strange, violent creatures who roam the ship, while Payton tries to get straight answers from a young officer (Cam Gigandet) who claims to have had to kill other crew out of self-defense.
There's something so frustrating about a film like this, where something really interesting and fun just gets smushed into mediocrity through almost every choice in the craft of it.
On the positive side, Foster and Quaid both turn in solid performances, with Foster bearing the load of the narrative weight as he navigates the large, hostile ship corridors. The supporting cast is also pretty good, though the writing of those characters is relatively weak.
The film also manages to capture some of the awe and terror of deep space exploration. The name of the film comes from a fictionalized deep space madness, and the legend of a ship called the
Pandora on which the captain went crazy and ejected all of the passengers. The sleep containers--which one character refers to as a "metal coffin"--are frightening and effective props.
But, boy, is this a movie that shoots itself in the foot over and over and over. There are about five plot turns in the film (I resist the term "twist" in this case for the most part), and three of them are just so stunningly obvious. As the writing tries to dance around them, it just gets annoying. There are repeated, REPEATED reference to "aliens" and I am not spoiling anything when I say, my man, those are
clearly not aliens. And all of this dancing around just means that by the time we land on two pretty compelling non-obvious developments, you are kind of burned out on the movie "surprising" you.
There is some decent action and gore to be found, but some of it starts to feel redundant. This is also a film that plays fast and loose with the abilities (speed, strength) of the creatures, and their capabilities always seem to fit whatever a specific scene needs. There's also very liberal use of that late 2000s helter-skelter editing style--with lots of cutaways and flashes of images--and it is really annoying and distracting.
I liked the movie just fine. Foster really does keep things together in his role despite some pretty unhelpful dialogue. But what a waste of potential!