Grade: C
“Pandorum” feels like a movie that doesn’t quite know what to make of itself. It tries to be paranoid, but ends up not making sense. It tries to be exciting, but manages only to keep you curious about how the abyss of space will go bump in the night. And so the job of figuring out whether the film is science fiction, horror, psychological thriller or some sort of creative is left to the audience.
The claustrophobic and intense look at the vast emptiness of space pictured in the initial trailer is lost among creatures, running and a fight for survival that tries to draw the audience in.
Instead, this keeps viewers anchored at the threshold. You spend so much time trying to decide whether or not to step into this threshold that the film ends before you’ve made your decision.
Bower (Ben Foster) only knows his name from seeing it written on the stasis chamber where he slumbered in suspended animation on the Elysium spaceship. Waking up alone, confused and at a loss for who or where he is, he is quickly joined by another astronaut, played by Dennis Quaid. Quaid’s character also wakes up with amnesia — a side effect of long term stasis. Nothing works to revive their memories; everything is dark and supposedly spooky. As the two men begin to piece their lives and memories back together, it becomes apparent that something is very, very wrong with whatever is going on.
This begins a search through the ship plagued by power failure and horrifying creatures that begin to hunt down the survivors they encounter. Among the survivors is Nadia (Antje Traue), a strange huntress who fails to have a significant role alongside her male counterparts.
“Pandorum” makes a concerted effort to be paranoid and psychological, drawing its name from a fictitious disorder that causes those spending too much time in the void to go insane. Unfortunately, the effort carries little impact, instead threatening the audience with a headache from the many blurry, whirling and poorly-lit sequences meant to show the slip from sanity into madness. Anything involving movement is impossible to follow, confusing the viewer and creating an immediate barrier to immersion in the story. What is meant to visually represent paranoid delusions and panic amid the horrifying nothingness instead becomes both repetitive and annoying.
The film should have stuck with the premise from its teaser trailer, full of confusion and panic wandering amidst a dark, mysterious ship that hides a terrible, faceless menace — a labyrinth loathing to divulge its secrets. Instead, we get a plot that is more nonsensical than scarily mysterious.
Though Quaid does an admirable (if lackluster) job of portraying angst and creeping madness, Foster’s voice jumps more than he does. Foster creates his character with all the intensity but none of the acting. Due diligence is given and occasionally the film succeeds at keeping the audience unaware of what’s going on, but then a whirling, blurry and barely comprehensible attempt at an explanation is made and we are left more confused than we were before.
“Pandorum” really can’t get out of its own way. The plot and actors chug along to a threatening but never really scary story. And while it does manage a limited concern, it never manages to be truly immersive. Strong in its premise, the execution simply gave up. The result is a mishmash of a dozen different science fiction, horror and psychological films that, while at least tacitly compatible, are not the ones audiences came to see and, really, neither is “Pandorum.”
You can reach this writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
