At the Movies with Fatwayne

This movie brings us to the deep reaches of outer-space. How about 123 years and 500 billion miles deep? This is the situation that our main characters find themselves in, deep space but they will soon learn that they are also in some deep s**t! Lt. Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Cpl. Bower (Ben Foster) are just awaking from deep space hibernation and find themselves alone on a huge 60,000 passenger ship designed to transport people from a dying Earth to a new “earth-like” planet. In addition to being unable to find any of their sleeping shipmates and suffering from memory loss brought on by all the years in hibernation, they are in total darkness!

One thing soon becomes horrifyingly clear to them – they are not alone. There are creatures aboard that would like nothing more than to have them for lunch! So all of their efforts are concentrated on just remaining alive and finding a way to restore power.  As time passes their memories start to return in bits and pieces. Cpl. Bower still can’t remember much but he has a feel for the ship’s mechanics and figures that if he can locate the reactor he can restore power and perhaps answer some of their lingering questions. Lt. Payton has a small communications radio that will allow him to guide Bower through the airways to the reactor.

Can you guess who gets the raw end of this deal? Bower is beaten and bashed and falls from great heights so many times that it becomes laughable! He fights monsters and feral ship survivors but miraculously doesn’t suffer so much as a bruise. He does however learn some details about the “monsters”. They were crew members who were endowed with genetic enhancements that was supposed to aid them in their survival on the new planet. Unfortunately, due to the long time they were on the ship they mutated to survive in their darkened space-ship environment. Although humanoid in shape they do not resemble anyone you would like to meet! To make matters worse, as I have previously mentioned, they are not very friendly.

There is one other problem plaguing our astronauts. It seems that there is a psychosis that one can develop when he/she is subjected to deep space travel for very long periods of time. Oddly enough it is called Pandorum and can present itself as paranoia and even homicidal rage. Yes, there is some of this delightful nonsense running around also.

As so the movie plods on with a story that is not very plausible in the least. In fact, the plot has more holes in it than the colander you strain your spaghetti with! Without being a spoiler, I will tell you that it ends happily enough for some of our travelers but there was the obvious question of why didn’t some of the mutants make it? You will see what I mean at the ending. I just scratched my head and wondered why this wasn’t a much better movie given the exciting trailers. Now I know why the film wasn’t previewed for the press!

For quotes from this movie go to  http://www.tvmoviequotes.com/pandorum.htm

Rated -R-

Fatwayne’s Rating  –  -