Last night I was in the mood to watch Event Horizon. Unfortunately, I've already watched it for a previous 31 Days, so I was out of luck. There just don't seem to be enough horror/sci-fi films around when you need them. (I'd watch the hell out of a live action Dead Space. I think.)
Luckily, as I was perusing the movies available on Starz I happened to see that they had Pandorum. It's been a few years since I watched and while I remember being slightly underwhelmed, I also remember being impressed with the mood and effects.
The Medium
Starz streaming service. I'll be opting out after the 7 day free trial. It's not organized well and the streaming quality has been intermittently bad. Sometimes the film just stops or hangs and at other times I get significant signal degradation (like a soup of moving squares). Other streaming services don't seem to have the same issues on the same equipment. So, while the service has some shows I want to watch - Ash vs the Evil Dead, primarily - and some movies I can't find elsewhere I just don't feel like it would be worth a regular subscription.
The Movie
2174 and the Earth is chock-a-block full of human beings. The recent discovery of an Earth-like planet leads to the construction of an enormous interstellar ship, the Elysium, meant to carry 60,000 humans in hypersleep/cryosleep/goopy-second-skin-sleep to their new home. Eight years in the crew (on a rotating cycle of sleep/awake with other crews) gets a message from Earth. "We done screwed up. Planet's gone. You're it. Good luck." Maybe not in so many words - but that's the gist.
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| Message decoded: You're fucked. |
In indeterminate amount of time later Corporal Bower (Ben Foster) is awakened in the cold and dark, along with Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid). They're both suffering from partial amnesia, a result of an unusually long time in hypersleep. How long, exactly, they're unable to determine - as power surges are playing havoc with the computers and they cannot contact the bridge.
Bower heads off through the ventilation system to try and get to the reactor and stabilize it. Payton stays to try and get into the computer system and figure out why they're the only two members of their rotation to awaken. Bowers is beginning to suffer the early stages of a deep-space psychotic syndrome known as "Orbital Dysfunction Syndrome." Also called Pandorum.
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| Don't worry man! It gets much worse after this! |
I'm a sucker for amnesia stories in general - the who are you and what did you do and what will you do now that you've got a clean slate sort of thing. It's one of the reason I got sucked into Dark Matter (damn you SyFy for cancelling it). Memento, Bourne Identity, Dark City, Total Recall. Even Paycheck. So just with that conceit I'm already predisposed to enjoy the film. Add to that a grimy, dark and claustrophobic first act that treats the ship as giant haunted house full of monsters and I'm all in.
Pandorum doesn't manage to keep up with the promise of that first third - morphing into more standard sci-fi action fare as Bowers meets more survivors and the 'monsters' are revealed in brighter light as more Mad Max rejects than the xenomorphs. The dark, cramped hallways and holds give way to brighter, open areas that work better for the action-oriented set pieces and chase sequences. Not to say it's bad - it's quite fun, really - but it's not as oppressive and weird as it sets out to be.
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| "Witness me!" |
In fact I find myself more interested in Payton and the survivor he finds, Corporal Gallo. Gallo claims the ship is lost in space and that he was forced to kill his fellow crew members after they succumbed to Pandorum. There's something more going on with the twitchy (and sketchy) Corporal, however. We know it, and Payton knows it - leading him to take precautions.
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| Like glaring at him in an angry way. |
Bower and the two survivors that join his quest to find the reactor - Nadia and Manh - dodge groups of the creatures (who are incredibly difficult to kill - except when they're not) and run across yet another survivor, Leland. Leland offers them sanctuary and food and tells them the real story - about the message from earth, one of the crew going mad and killing the others and then 'playing God' with the passengers before putting himself back into hypersleep and abandoning the passengers to time and an evolution accelerating enzyme. (Leland's also drugged the food, because he's an opportunistic cannibal as well as a storyteller.)
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| "I don't like this story. And the food sucks." |
Things go on from there with the 'final countdown' race to the reactor, a confrontation between Payton and Gallo that goes a way you shouldn't expect, but probably do, and well as a final reveal that should feel like more of a twist than it does. It wasn't quite what I expected, but it was close enough to feel disappointing.
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| "6 levels of Doom and suddenly it's figure out a puzzle time?" |
The Bottom Line
It has a bunch of interesting ideas and imagery, but Pandorum ends up feeling both lighter and more familiar than it should. It doesn't quite scratch that Lovecraft in Space itch that Event Horizon does so well, either, being more of a horror/adventure tale with some pretty standard action beats and familiar sci-fi tropes. It's still got plenty to recommend it, with some great set design and performances and a story that's still enjoyable, if not ground breaking.
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