‘Pandorum’ Movie Review

Waking up hungover in a stranger’s bed is a bad time.  Waking up in a sleep chamber on a spaceship and not knowing who you are, where you are, what year it is and why you’re there is worse.  Pandorum stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster (Angel from X-Men 3) in this scenario as they attempt to put the pieces together.

Pandorum on DVD & Blu-Ray January 19

From the folks who brought us the Resident Evil flicks, Pandorum mixes elements of Sunshine and I Am Legend into a very watchable movie that didn’t get the respect that it deserved in the theaters.  Maybe it was the marketing, bad timing or the mostly negative reviews, but any sci-fi fan will enjoy the way classic devices  are put together into something of a geek buffet.

Pandorum opens with Corporal Bower (Ben Foster) waking up from hypersleep on a spaceship with no idea who he is, where he is, or why he is there.  He finds one other man in hypersleep, Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid), who he wakes up and teams with to put all the pieces together.  As they slowly regain their memory, the race is on to restart the ship’s nuclear reactor before it completely dies.  With Payton staying behind, staving off the space sickness Pandorum and guiding via radio, Bower must navigate the enormous ship in the dark, encountering other survivors of the ship’s crew, who may or may not be on his side.

Pandorum is a fun sci-fi/horror movie in the tradition of Alien.  Sure there are some plot holes that need filling, but the atmosphere, style and pace of the movie will overcome those and reward any casual sci-fi fan with 108 minutes of popcorn-chomping entertainment.