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Pandorum (2009)

Director: Christian Alvart

Time Out rating

Average user rating

9 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

‘From the producers of “Resident Evil” ’: words to strike fear into the heart of sci-fi fans. However, with talented German fanboy Christian Alvart (‘Antibodies’) in charge of the dark matter, the dystopian premise is deftly set up, while the denouement pulls off not one but two neat twists.

Two astronauts, Lieutenant Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Corporal Bower (Ben Foster), awake from hyper-sleep in a confused state. As memories of their Noah’s Ark-style mission return, they find that cannibalistic human-mutants are on the ship. As are two other humans, scientist-turned-savage Nadia and fighting machine Manh. As the ship’s generator threatens to crash and tension rises, the survivors suffer cabin fever and symptoms of Pandorum – a condition that induces hallucinations, amorality and delusions of power. Alvart achieves a strong sense of scale, but characters and ideas are lost amid a mess of fight scenes that, oddly, look like outtakes from ‘The Descent’.

Author: Nigel Floyd

Time Out London Issue 2041: 1-7 October, 2009

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User reviews of this film

DaGift said...

Posted on May 18 2011 04:17 This movie has a great build up like making a fire blaze on & up to the very end it leaves you puzzled & confused however just like resident evil, solaris, the sphere not forgetting aliein, it leaves you awestrucked. this will make me add this to the other collection of horror-genre, it's original like the rest & the storyline as with the mutants are all wonderfully done, will make me watch this along with the others in my collection again & again.

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Paul said...

Posted on Nov 11 2010 08:19 WTF! This was an absolute wast of my time.

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Yoda said...

Posted on Jan 31 2010 12:30 I think the film does a pretty damn good job of putting you in Ben Foster's and Dennis Quaid's shoes. They just woke up from hypersleep, when it is normal to be confused and have memory loss, but they awake alone in a situation that doesn't exactly help them get their bearings. They're scared, cold and weak, utterly lost even inside their own massive ship (whose mission they cannot remember) and the other life forms they soon encounter are either psychotic or bizarrely aggressive humans, or clearly dangerous aliens/mutants/whatever. The audience has no omniscience and I think that lends well to ratcheting up the tension. My only real eye-roll at the movie was that the other creatures were a bit too Mad Max-y for me. But on the whole this is a (yes dark, yes slow) careful and in many ways original story. One cool thing about space travel is the magnitude of time that allows for things like this story taking place over many years (coming across mummified remains, for example). I put it in a group of other high-quality sci-fi films like Solaris and Sunshine that are largely disregarded, perhaps for their generally slow and relatively quiet buildup of tension. But I understand most folks probably prefer constant dialog, exposition and action...

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David Jones said...

Posted on Jan 03 2010 10:50 What.. Was.. That... About..?
I hope I can contact Alvarts lawyers and sue for the 2 hours I'll never get back! Utterly pointless film, but great if you're 10 years old.. and what's a ten year old doing watching this? where are the parents? Miss this if you have an ounce of intelligence for the sake of your sanity.

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_Matt_1977_ said...

Posted on Oct 15 2009 16:58 This film tries to be clever and fails. I watched it directly after District 9 and was disappointed as I felt watching this reasonably entertaining film was a come-down after the heights of the much better District 9.
Having said that, in fairness I felt that on its own merits this was a reasonably well-done and entertaining film, albeit not terribly original, not least in its "twist".

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steve said...

Posted on Oct 08 2009 19:50 I agree with the comment before me. The movie does what you expect no? It scares you, a few jumps and the necessary lashings of gore. I'm not sure why it has got such a negative reaction. ok it's no alien but what do you want???

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Michael Mabon said...

Posted on Oct 06 2009 00:35 Haha, i thought this film was top. Really enjoyed, sort of like "28 day's later in space" I don't share my friends comments i found it very entertaining, funny in some bits that probaly weren't supposed to be but was a good yarn and i'm sure i jumprd at a few bits!!! haha, I really enjoyed it and i guess that's what its all about!! No??

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roger rabbit said...

Posted on Oct 04 2009 11:50 The line on the cinema poster for Alien was " In space no one can hear you sc ream" Well after buying a ticket for this visual S*** everyone within 6 miles will hear you scream. Utter bollocks plus so dark you cant really see or care whats going on ! Mr Q was bad enough in GI Joe this is 10 times worse ,he must be short of cash,another one to leave on blockbusters shelf !

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Oct 03 2009 03:59 some astronauts wake up in a disoriented state on a spaceship which looks like a cheap imitation of the alien craft and are hunted by some cannibal mutants while they discover that earth has disappeared due to some disaster ,the acting is total pandemonium and the special effects are appallingly bad ,while the mutants are hilariously amusing with action that is worst than even inferior bollywood flicks ,and surprisingly dennis quaid is just as bad as the rest of the package too ,this is a real space disaster that eclipses the apocalypse that destroyed the human planet .

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