3 out of 5

Director: Christian Alvart

As with Daybreakers, which came out around the same time, Pandorum doesnt necessarily offer anything new to the space horror genre, but it has enough stylistic panache to make it a worthwhile watch. Pandorum begins and ends very well, with a really nice slow build and a super frenetic conclusion that buffer a jittery, ho-hum middle. While the setup isnt exactly new, these kinds of premises are generally always good for a few minutes of entertainment: main character wakes up, not knowing who they are, where they are, or what theyre doing there. So half the fun is discovery along with the protagonist. In this case Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid wake up on a space ship that doesnt appear to have any power, though the rest of the film establishes the who and the why. As with a lot of isolated movies, the tension takes a dramatic dip once you meet some other characters. And you know from the trailers and general gloomy atmosphere that something else is gonna be out there, and yup, its a Descent / Alien mix. This would be fine, but the camera work changes from here on out into flash cut spastic style, jarring scenes to the point where I swore Ben Foster died a few times but it turned out to be someone else. It also jumps and dives between crazy and mundane, both action-wise and acting-wise, never really working to make you feel too scared about the goings-ons. However, this pays off once the plot starts to dole out some of the answers, as we learn more about Pandorum (space sickness mixed with homicidal delirium) and what the heck is going on in space… because the characters start to descend into bits of insanity and finally the intense camera work matches the mood. Anyhow, it builds up to a pretty imaginative ending, even if the twists are somewhat predictable, and though the film has nabbed from every possible scary sci-fi flick out there, it still manages to be a pretty good use of 108 minutes… though moreso at home than in a theater.