Pandorum

The first 20 minutes of Pandorum are pretty fucking awesome. Some guy played by Ben Foster wakes up from hyper sleep somewhere in the dark onboard some spaceship buried somewhere in deep space. Light comes only from handheld tubes and occasional flashes from the overheads. It’s quiet, lonely, and disorienting. The whole beginning part of the movie carries a feeling of generalized confusion, which is helpfully enhanced by the absolute lack of any real plot exposition other than a few title cards which explain the general state of the universe but don’t explain anything about what’s actually going on.

 

The inherent problem with all this is that once the initial disorientation wears off, the movie itself begins to become less exhilarating and more derivative and generic. As Foster makes his way through the ship and begins to get a better understanding of what the fuck is going on, the whole business begins to feel more and more like a remake of The Descent with a different inherently scary setting subbed in[1]. Oh and for the record, apparently in the future everyone dresses and acts like an Oakland Raiders fan. Just sayin’. 

 

Also, about 40 minutes in, the movie decides to make up for its up-to-that-point lack of expository dialogue by unleashing a shitload of it. While this helps with understanding what the fuck is going on, it also makes the movie less exciting and scary. Like, it’s nice to know that “pandorum” is a condition that makes you all crazyface and shit, but for the movie to have Dennis Quaid shout, “Pandorum is a condition that makes you all crazyface and shit” just seems lazy. I think more filmmakers should acknowledge the effectiveness of disorientation as a cinematic tool. I also think that expository dialogue should get fucked. 

 

Overall, Pandorum was aggressively OK. If I were to rate it on a scale of 1-10, I would give it a 5. If I were to give it stars, I would give it 2 stars out of 4. If I had thumbs, I would give it a 2 thumbs sideways. It was OK. If I were giving letter grades, I would give it a C. I would encourage you to go see it if you have shit else to do, or if you like movies where characters spend half the movie crawling around in the dark with only a flashlight. Pandorum was OK. I’m sorry I have nothing funny to say about it.

 

In other news, I think Melvin and I are going to see Surrogates tomorrow. Word up.

 

->postietoastie

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