Pandorum (2009)

Directed by Christian Alvart. Starring Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid, Antje Traue, Cam Gigandet, Cung Le, Eddie Rouse, Norman Reedus. [R]

On an ark-like spaceship carrying settlers to a distant Earth-like planet, crew members Foster and Quaid awaken from deep sleep with partial amnesia, but it’s gosh darn tough for them to figure things out when a horde of inhuman cannibals are running around the dilapidated vessel; the “pandorum” of its title is just a fancy way to describe, as Ren Höek would say, “space madness.” Starts with introductory text explaining that Earth’s population has ballooned to over 24 billion in the 22nd century (out on a limb here: unsustainable), jumps to a feverish closeup of Foster’s bulging eyes, and away we go! Dour, derivative sci-fi/horror takes too long to get to its payoff points, leaving the audience in the company of characters that are untrustworthy because of their fragmented memories and aren’t developed enough to be sympathetic; worse, the action/attack scenes are edited with such spastic, thrashing fervor that they’re nearly impossible to follow (dim lighting in nearly every scene doesn’t help). This leaves one with plenty of time to ponder background elements—such as why the designers chose such a hacky industrial-futurist typeface for every printed word on the ship—until everything finally comes together in the last half hour. Co-produced by Paul W.S. Anderson, which makes sense since there are echoes of Event Horizon here; this one’s better, but not much so.

39/100