Pandorum: A Space Cliche

by Pa Rock
Citizen Film Critic

I love going to movies, getting away from the old trailer park, sitting in a dark auditorium lost in bad popcorn and a good movie. I'm not overly critical and can find something redeeming almost any professional film effort.

The pickings were admittedly slim at the local multi-plex today, and I finally settled on the new sci-fi flick - Pandorum. I'll admit to not being a huge fan of science fiction movies, but I did like 2001 A Space Odyssey. (The fact that it was considered to be futuristic shows just how old I am!) I also liked Star Wars (the original) and Barbarella.

Pandorum didn't make my favorites list. In fact, the best thing about it was the popcorn. I should have walked out, but I had five bucks invested and sat tight hoping that I would eventually get something for my money. Didn't happen. All that I came away with was a five dollar education.

The plot: Two crew members of a long-term space flight - a "Noah's Ark" cruising into deep space to found a new world on a planet similar to earth - wake up after an unknown amount of time in "hyper-sleep" (2001, anybody?) and spend the rest of the movie running around a monstrously large, dark and Gothic, spacecraft. Why are they running and why is the music loud and frenetic? Because they are being pursued by evil mutants who have inexplicably come to occupy the same spacecraft (a la Alien.)

The screenplay for this dud of a movie could have been written on an envelope. The entire film didn't contain a thousand words of significant dialogue, and much of that was whispered - as though the actors realized the triteness of what they were saying. The plot was so contrived that it didn't take long before I found myself rooting for the mutants!

Panodrum is the worst movie that I have paid to see in years, perhaps ever. Dennis Quaid couldn't save it, and I doubt that Dr. House could either! Don't waste your money or your time on this one!