Bower soon finds another man called Payton (Dennis Quaid), who has also just awoken from deed sleep and finds himself equally disorientated. Bower looks to reboot the ship’s vital systems and reach other areas as Payton guides him from the relative safety of ship’s control room, but Bower soon loses contact when he comes across some horribly mutated on-board hostiles.

The mutants are a sort of cross between the Reavers in Firefly/Serenity and the creatures from The Descent. Not just for their look but for the crude weapons that they weild. As they close in on Bower he finds himself a stun-gun, the meatiest weapon we see in the entire movie (which is actually kind of cool, and boosts the ’survival’/grab-whatever-one-can element).

As time goes on we discover (along with the characters, who are only just remembering), that the space ship Elysium is a ’sleeper’ ship on a one-way ride to a planet named Tanis. Tanis is a world much like our own which will sustain life following Earth’s massive overpopulation. To go on explaining would be to ruin the story.

Watch the Pandorum trailer:

I think the movie would have benefited from more believable and varied characters, for example the idealised girl Nadia who saves Bower early on and has learnt martial arts in five months, no mean feat provided we are to believe that before she was just a worker in the ship’s bio lab. It isn’t difficult to recognise the people involved with the Resident Evil flicks helped make this, the whole Nadia and the random Asian martial arts god (don’t ask) who turn up reek of Resi’s Alice and numerous other slightly one-dimensional heroines from the last ten or so years of cinema.

According to the FAQ on IMDB, Pandorum is the first part of a planned trilogy, and though critics attacked it pretty badly the general public seem to have enjoyed it quite a bit more. I think it is in danger of becoming another so-so Resident Evil/Chronicles of Riddick-esque franchise. Pandorum isn’t a great movie, but provides us with a decent and entertaining space-horror. For all its faults there are some decent plot ideas and If executed with a steady hand, there could yet be room for an interesting sequel.

If you like the sound of Pandorum, you may also like the movies:
Event Horizon (1997)
Sunshine (2007)
Serenity (2005)
Firefly (2002)
Pitch Black (2000)
The Descent (2005)

Or if you’re into computer games:
Dead Space (2008)

Some related posts:
the Perfect spacecraft
Here’s my post ‘The Top Villains of the ’00s’ in which Ben Foster and The Operative from Serenity feature
Danny Boyle: filmography to date

On my travels I found this snazzy little Fallout 3 Christmas card and this rather interesting post on Fable people Vs Fallout 3 people. I love Fallout 3 so far – all the stuff you can collect, the look (particularly the 50s feel along with the artwork) and the various denizens are all super cool. I find it a bit hard sometimes to do the right things as items can sometimes be too close together (for instance, when asking a guy for a drink I’ll steal some cash instead and get shot by everyone as a result). Also, sometimes I’ll pick a really cool weapon or item up only to die and lose it again, with lack of ammo being a constant issue. Its early days though and I look forward to mastering the game (the next few weeks should afford me ample time, sorry family!) What really interests me about that blog post though is the divide they talk about between Fable 2 and Fallout 3 fans. I’m looking forward to playing Fable 2 now, will I love or hate it?! hmm… maybe I’ll rent it before I decide.

Slightly more festive, this made me laugh, it’s a BBC article about those Round Robins that circulate at this time of year. I reckon some of them are well-crafted, while others are all “look at me”. Good advice though, think about who you’re sending them to. Close friends only please! I still get a birthday card with a note to my folks in it, which kind of irks me. Once I’ve read the birthday wishes to myself it’s a “for you” type situation as I hand it over. Bah! Bugger it, I’m probably just being snotty now.

In other not-so-important news there’s talk of naming streets after celebs. I’m not sure I’d want to live on a street with an Oasis-inspired name, sounds like trouble!