Pandorum

‘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’.