Main cast: Ben Foster (Bower), Cam Gigandet (Gallo), Antje Traue (Nadia), Cung Le (Manh), Eddie Rouse (Leland), Norman Reedus (Shepard), André M Hennicke (Hunter Leader), and Dennis Quaid (Payton)
Director: Christian Alvart
Pandorum refers to a psychological condition experienced by people in a spacecraft after they have been in suspended animation for too long. Those with Pandorum basically lose it and behave violently, going paranoid and becoming a danger to fellow crew mates.
Whether or not officers Bower and Payton have Pandorum, that is what the audience will be left to mull over as the movie progresses. These two men wake up in their suspended animation pod only to realize that their ship, the Elysium, is apparently deserted. What has happened? As they begin exploring the apparently deserted spacecraft, they will encounter horrors that prey on human flesh. And yet the greatest danger may just be the surviving humans left onboard the ship.
Comparisons to the movie Event Horizon are perhaps inevitable, as this is another movie about spacecrafts infested with danger that result in gore and mayhem. While the level of gore and the amount of chills delivered are quite respectable, the movie tries very hard to be smart and this is where scriptwriter Travis Milloy and the director make their gravest misstep. By attempting to tie in Pandorum with the monsters as well as the concept of human amorality in a lawless environment, the movie ends up trying to cover way too much ground in a most inadequate manner. By the time the credit rolls, I find myself trying to tie in all the themes introduced into the movie, only to realize that much of the movie does not make sense.
Pandorum is perfectly reasonable horror film, provided you aren’t fooled by its pseudo-intellectual smokescreens into believing that there is anything more beneath the surface of this movie.
