DVD Reviews

Pandorum

• Rating:
• Director: Christian Alvart.
• Starring: Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid, Cam Gigandet, Cung Le, Antje Traue.
• Details: US / TBC / (TBC).

Borrowing liberally from other science fiction movies with a similar hook, Pandourm is rarely original, but sometimes exudes enough atmosphere to ignore some of the productions more prominent shortcomings. The script is purely functional, only ever serving to push the story forward, and the creatures that plague the ship are, well, kind of crap looking; but Foster is an intense presence on screen, and he makes more out of his first real leading role than most other actors could. Dennis Quaid, meanwhile, is showing an increasingly disturbing attraction towards films with awful dialogue, after Vantage Point and G.I. Joe. A couple of crew members are awake from an extended hyper sleep to find their huge spacecraft immersed in a deafening silence. Struggling to remember how long they've been asleep, and even the most basic information regarding their past, their memories slowly return to them. In an attempt to figure out what has happened to other crew members, Ben Foster's Bower ventures to the core of the craft to see if he can figure out why the ship has stalled, along the way encountering survivors. Other creatures have also managed to stay alive, though, and they've done so by devouring the remaining crew. Bower must live long enough to reboot the ship and figure out how to get the survivors to safe ground. Despite having moments of ballsy brilliance (one scene in particular sees two of our heroes almost drowning in human remains), every time something cool happens, there's a line of dialogue, or ropey shot of one of the blood hungry creatures that just takes you right of it. It's a real shame because, for the first fifteen minutes, this is exceptionally atmospheric stuff - but there's about another hour and a half to fill. For the rest of the running time it struggles to come close to that claustrophobic opening. Some good moments, and a strong turn from Ben Foster, still can't help this feel like anything more than a glorified B-Movie, with a script that has more recycled ideas than genuine class.

Review by Mike Sheridan