'Pandorum' Movie Review

At some point during the flight, Corporal Bower (Ben Foster), a member of the fifth flight crew, suddenly awakens from his cryo-sleep to find the ship's power intermittent and the members of his crew -- except Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid) -- gone. Because of the length of the trip, Bower is suffering from short-term amnesia, and he can't recall the purpose of the mission, much less what's happened on the ship.

He wakes up Payton, and they try to piece together what's going on. Since they can't open the door to their cabin, Bower squeezes through a vent to explore the ship. He finds it nearly deserted, save for roving hordes of bloodthirsty humanoid creatures who've somehow managed to make their way on board. The beasts, it seems, have fed on most of the slumbering passengers, but Bower finds a few survivors who agree to help him find the ship's reactor, which needs to be restarted in order to guide the ship to its destination.

Meanwhile, Payton discovers another survivor, Gallo (Cam Gigandet), who was part of the flight crew preceding Bower and Payton. Gallo is shifty and defensive when questioned about what happened during the mission, and Payton begins to suspect that he's suffering from pandorum, a mental condition resulting from extended space flight the drives its victims mad. As Payton and Bower fight their individual battles, they uncover secrets lying within the ship and within their own minds that make it apparent that the future of humanity lies in their hands.

That said, despite the familiar trappings, the clever story includes enough twists, turns and revelations (including a doozey of a climactic twist that may or may not stand up to logic) to keep you engaged. The mind-bending sci fi plot is admirably dense with possibilities, but it never fully reaches its potential, choosing easy exits to intriguing storylines like the location of Bower's girlfriend. (Thus, the one true emotional element in the film goes nowhere.)

The story, unfortunately, is better than the storytelling. Director Christian Alvart, who did such a magnificent job with the German thriller Antibodies, fails to translate his talent for emotion-packed, dark drama to this creature feature. In particular, the action is confusing, loaded with quick cuts and sped-up film that tries make the monsters seem more intimidating but ends up making you want to rewind to see what the heck just happened. Plus, on more than one occasion, Alvart jumbles expository moments, making the plot all the more difficult to understand.

The distracting direction, however, might be meant to mask the shortcomings of the creature design, which is uninspired and unintimidating, albeit probably realistic under the (fantastic) circumstances.

Aside from the overall mystery -- which has a nice payoff -- the glue that holds Pandorum together is the cast. Foster (30 Days of Night), often a supporting actor or side kick, steps up admirably to the leading man role, exuding a likeable Everyman appeal. Quaid is steady as always, and Gigandet (Twilight) flashes the dangerous charm that's needed to keep the audience guessing.

Pandorum has all of the elements of a great movie, but somewhere along the way, the cooks turned it from a Porterhouse to a Salisbury steak.