The movie Pandorum is trying to evoke memories of Alien, or Forbidden Planet but fails due to a lack of restraint, a dumb plot that only kinda makes sense, horribly done action sequences, and dodgy CG. The movie isn't complete utter crap like Terminator Salvation or Transformers, it's got some good portions like the occasionaly well done character or the occasionaly scary scene it's just that these moments are too far and few between to be of any significance to the overall film.
SPOILERS: So the story in summary of Pandorum goes thus, the Earth's population is getting bigger and bigger as the drinking age gets smaller and smaller. Eventually the humans find a planet called Taris which they decide to go and colonize Taris, with a ship called Elysium filled with a couple thousand people who all go into deep hypersleep and wake up a whole bunch of years later. A couple of members of the crew start to wake up including the main character Bower (Ben Foster) and his superior officer Payton (Dennis Quaid). Then Bower is sent to turn on the fusion reactor so as to open up the way to the ships bridge where they can find their way to Taris. So then Bower his new girlfriend, his non-english speaking friend, and ethnic black-backstabber friend, encounter some weird alien like things which it turns out aren't aliens at all but rather they are humans who adapted to the ship? Eventually they turn on the fusion reactors, Dennis Quaid was evil and they were on Earth, i mean, Taris all along.
As was written the story borrows heavily from other sources as well as revealing it's major plot info through really boring character dialouge between some of the not so great actors (everyone but Dennis Quaid) so these scenes of plot relevence fall flat because all the boring characters are talking. In terms of main characters Payton is pretty awesome as Dennis Quaid does a smashing good job, especially towards the end when he starts having some pretty bad trips. But then there is Bower, Bower is pretty whiny in the beggining and too generically developed and acted to leave any kind of lasting impression.
But of course there are other reasons with which to beat the film to death, one of which is not so much the fact that it uses other movies as refrences but that it uses them wrong. One thing it tries to copy is Alien/Aliens with the crazy super-powered monstrosities that are close to impossible to kill the first time but then they are very easy pickings. The other thing they copy is the basic idea of the ending for Planet of the Apes as it turns out that while our heroes have been fighting for a way to get to Taris but they've been under water all along and so therefore it was Earth All Along! Also did anyone else notice the poor CGI on the water during that scene, Goodness me. Of course all of this could have been forgiven if Pandorum had actually been scary, it being a Sci-Fi Thriller i expect to be thrilled just as much as i'm enthralled by the space-age tech. The only way you'll find this scary is if you found Aliens to be a screamfest.
All in All Great Premise, stupid execution, what else is new?
SPOILERS: So the story in summary of Pandorum goes thus, the Earth's population is getting bigger and bigger as the drinking age gets smaller and smaller. Eventually the humans find a planet called Taris which they decide to go and colonize Taris, with a ship called Elysium filled with a couple thousand people who all go into deep hypersleep and wake up a whole bunch of years later. A couple of members of the crew start to wake up including the main character Bower (Ben Foster) and his superior officer Payton (Dennis Quaid). Then Bower is sent to turn on the fusion reactor so as to open up the way to the ships bridge where they can find their way to Taris. So then Bower his new girlfriend, his non-english speaking friend, and ethnic black-backstabber friend, encounter some weird alien like things which it turns out aren't aliens at all but rather they are humans who adapted to the ship? Eventually they turn on the fusion reactors, Dennis Quaid was evil and they were on Earth, i mean, Taris all along.
As was written the story borrows heavily from other sources as well as revealing it's major plot info through really boring character dialouge between some of the not so great actors (everyone but Dennis Quaid) so these scenes of plot relevence fall flat because all the boring characters are talking. In terms of main characters Payton is pretty awesome as Dennis Quaid does a smashing good job, especially towards the end when he starts having some pretty bad trips. But then there is Bower, Bower is pretty whiny in the beggining and too generically developed and acted to leave any kind of lasting impression.
But of course there are other reasons with which to beat the film to death, one of which is not so much the fact that it uses other movies as refrences but that it uses them wrong. One thing it tries to copy is Alien/Aliens with the crazy super-powered monstrosities that are close to impossible to kill the first time but then they are very easy pickings. The other thing they copy is the basic idea of the ending for Planet of the Apes as it turns out that while our heroes have been fighting for a way to get to Taris but they've been under water all along and so therefore it was Earth All Along! Also did anyone else notice the poor CGI on the water during that scene, Goodness me. Of course all of this could have been forgiven if Pandorum had actually been scary, it being a Sci-Fi Thriller i expect to be thrilled just as much as i'm enthralled by the space-age tech. The only way you'll find this scary is if you found Aliens to be a screamfest.
All in All Great Premise, stupid execution, what else is new?
