Movie Review Time: Pandorum

Poster:

What do you see in the poster? A dude that seemingly can change skin and move very fast while doing it, while his face is blurred and have a giant duct tape on his chest. While the image might remind some people of the movie Alien and its franchise, or Species for some… more skin-oriented people (oh yeah… 😀 ) the movie does not have any alien inside. In fact, there isn’t any scene involving skin changing at all. So, all and all, the poster for Singapore release is kinda focusing on this is what happened when you first wake up from hyper sleep, instead of this is what you get if you spend your ten bucks on the movie ticket.

Story:

Pandorum is a disease. Explained as a paranoia syndrome that happens when you’re at space for too long, in Singapore we call it kiasu, but in space of course they have to put a lot of cool and weird names so that the movie sells such as hyper sleep instead of pigging off. The sign starts with your hand started shivering, you start to feel anxious, nose bleed, and then hallucinate things which is bad, not fairies and unicorns. The latter is not Pandorum, it’s called getting high. This Pandorum strikes the crew, or to be precise, the ship captain of this gigantic cargo ship called the Elysium causing a domino effect that cause the demise of most of the passengers because the crew does not have control of the ship anymore. Things got haywire with the appearance of some race of mutants that have adapt themselves to the ship environment they have high agility, brutal way of doing things, and amazing mad parkour skills. (This looks kinda fun for them, not for the human, of course) Our main characters’ goal? To turn on the damn light. Okay, I was just kidding, they’re supposed to turn on the main reactor so that the ship will have enough power to wake up the rest of the crew and hopefully, fight together then fly to safety. Now speaking about safety, the Elysium main goal is to reach this planet called Tarnis, which is a new planet that contains enough water and food to sustain human’s population. Oh, and btw, earth is a goner from the movie’s timeline.

(Score: 0.5 – While the story is actually good, there’s a fact that this movie is not focusing on the Pandorum itself, in fact what they focus more is how to kill the mutants and reach Tarnis. The Pandorum is just kinda in the way.)

Cast:

The cast played their part very well and they all look the part including our man Cung Le which stars as a Vietnamese ninja-ish cool dude that doesn’t speak English throughout the movie unlike some other franchise which gives impression that aliens are cool coz they still speak English whatever their race is.

Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid are also joining the cast as Corporal Bower and Liutenant Payton, respectively. Both of their acting are top notch in this movie picturing two dudes who just wake up from a hyper sleep and suffering from a mild amnesia and… guess what… Pandorum. The lives of the passenger kinda relies on these two individuals tho~
The richness of the cast is complete after the addition of two more surviving crew members Manh (Cung Le), the Vietnamese agriculture farmer that can slice and dice mutants like they’re made of tofu, and Nadia (Antje Traue), the German geneticist that tends to attack everyone on sight and still manage to look smoking hot while doing it.

(Score: 1 – As I was saying, the casts are rich, even if I consider the addition cast such as random dead guy one and random dead guy two. Heck, even the dead guys vary. 😀 )

Graphic:

Now this is the good part. This gigantic ship is gigantic! Okay okay, I know, I’m being redundant, but I’m trying to make a point here, and the ship is huuuuuuge and dark for most of the movies. Now, if you’ve seen some of hollywood’s movies, there’s no such thing as darkness but in this movie, dark means dark. As in you can’t see anything. Now, the ship interior is so big that after a while following Bower’s escapade from the rampaging mutants that looks like Gollum after 5 adrenaline jacks, you basically have no idea where you are or in this case where Bower and the crew are and my friend, that is a good thing.

(Score: 1 – huge ship filled with carnivorous jacked-up Gollum, FTW!)

Sound:

It’s silent. Really. The sound effect is kinda naturally there, and not some music on the background. In this movie, however, I don’t think you will even notice any song going on if there is one. You rather pay attention to some surprises on the corner or mutants or the ship’s power surge or Captain Jean Luc Picard. Ahem.

(Score: 1 – No sound actually… and that is just perfect. Otherwise, I will feel like watching the Phantom of The Opera: Space version)

Action/Thriller Factor:

Now now now, here is the good part. After a lot of Alien movie and alien vs predator and predator vs Ronald McDonalds or whatever, it’s definitely a breather to see this genre came back. Remember the chills anticipating what happens next? Remember the puzzled feeling when you know that 60,000 people just went missing? (okay, so it’s 59,998, but let’s not be picky, ok?) This is why I’m coming to watch the movie. The chill factor is just there and at the right amount. Oh, the action is done mostly in the dark, but you’ll surely feel immersed into the storyline. Did I mention that you’ll feel lost in the ship as well? Especially the first scene in the ventilation shaft, you’ll somehow be able to relate to Bower. He just woke up, now he gotta save the ship.

(Score: 1 – Cool action, cool mutant, cool ninja-ish action, cool stun gun, now tell me where the heck am I???)

Overall, the score will be 4.5/5. This movie is good, Christian Alvart really manage to bring back this kinda claustrophobic spaceship mutant attack genre a.k.a. space thriller. The uber best part of it is the ending actually… but I can’t say it here, hahaha, otherwise some of you will probably send ninja nendoroid to whack me while I’m asleep, hahaha. Ok ok, I’ll just stop now and let you guys comment on this 
Ciao.

Note: the ending is… okay okay!! Just kidding.