Pandorum Blu-ray Review

Pandorum is a January 19th sci-fi thriller Blu-ray release from the creators of the Resident Evil film franchise, Achor Bay Entertainment and Overture Films.  Directed by Christian Alvart (Antibodies), the film tells the story about two men who wake up from a hypersleep and realize they are stranded on a spacecraft.  As Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Bower (Ben Forster) try to regain their memory (lost during the sleep), they discover that they are not along aboard the ship.

While Payton attempts to make the ship operational again, Bower ventures out to see what is going on.  What he discovers are lots of dead bodies and plenty of horrific creatures with super speed and deadly vices.  As he looks to evade his aggressive co-habitants he stumbles upon a couple more human survivors, Nadia (Antje Traue) and Manh (Cung Le).  Though they are initially hostile thanks to a survival mentality, Bower manages to convince them to work with him to figure out how to restore the ship to operational capacity.

While those three struggle to survive against their deadly foes, Captain Payton is visited by another survivor, Corporal Bower (Cam Gigandet of Never Back Down and Twilight).  Payton learns that his new partner appears to be suffering from a space psychotraumatic condition labeled “Pandorum”.  This causes delusional and pscychophrenic behaviors.  Everything is a mess as the remaining crew looks to turn their spacecraft on and figure out where they are.

Pandorum is a very dark and intense thriller.  It has an excellent cast with the stable Quaid, rising dramatic star Forster, and another budding talent in Gigandet.  Le and Traue add to the cast as well.  Other supporting players include Eddie Rouse, Andre Hennicke, and Norman Reedus.

While Pandorum is a nice movie is a bit underwhelming based on the billing and the talent in the cast.  The story is fine, but it takes a backseat to the visual effects.  It might have been a bit more impressive were  a not for the close plot tie-in to the 2005 film The Cave, one of the best monster movies in recent years.  In each film, members of a crew are found to be creatures that have evolved over time after being lost in a desolate location.  They become the enemies of the antagonists in the stories.

There are some nice moments toward the end with a few surprising twists.  Unfortunately, the end offers very little closure to the story and is not effective enough.  Part of the challenge is that the development of the movie is hard to follow.  Some of the most important pieces to filling in the plot puzzle come in lines that are hard to hear and understand.  Traue’s character offers some important points to the building story but between her accent and the sound of the film she is hard to understand.

The final sequence is visually excellent as it is revealed where the spacecraft is as well as a few other important items.  However, Pandorum, while captivating, is a bit disappointing overall.

Pandorum Blu-ray special features include:

• The World of Elysium: Behind the Scenes Featurette
• What Happened to Nadia’s Team
• FLight Team Training Video
• Audio Commentary with Director Christian Alvart and Producer Jeremy Bolt
• Deleted and Alternate Scenes
• Still Galleries
• Digital Copy of Pandorum for Portable Media Players

• Actors: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Antje Traue, Cung Le, Norman Reedus, Niels Bruno Schmidt, Delphine Chuillot
• Director: Christian Alvart
• Format: Color, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• Blu-ray Release Date: January 19, 2010
• Run Time: 108 minutes

Blu-ray Review by Neil of Movie Room Reviews

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