Pandorum

Rating: 6.8/10

Genre: Horror Sci-Fi

Overall value for money and time: 6.5/10

Set in the future where humans are on the brink of depleting their last resources due to the overwhelming increase in world population. A new Earth-like planet, Tanis, was found which promises the continual survivor of the human race and a supposed new beginning. It all started with a pair of space shuttle crew waking up from hypersleep and trying hard to recall what their mission was all about.

Well, if one were to watch it and not think back too much about the storyline, it would pass off as a fairly decent horror sci-fi movie. However, if you're one who's obsessed with the "logic" and how the scenes all intertwines to create that almost flawless storyline, then the rating is highly applicable to you. Because for this movie, it just fails to accomplish that.

At the end of the movie, I was rather confused, and upon further reading about the storyline online, I realised the fault lies in the delivery of the plot. There wasn't a clear definition of what was going on, it was all left to one's imagination - in an unsatisfying manner I must add. *spoilers ahead*

Perhaps the most pressing issue I have about the movie is how there was any link between the mutated humans and pandorum. Pandorum is a kind of condition caused by prolonged hyper sleep which creates hallucination and murderous behavior. Well, it was clearly explained in the movie at the start, and how the mutated humans came about was also revealed, but I just didn't see how both linked. Personally, I thought the the most important parts about the movie are the two mentioned above, but they felt like subplots in a movie that was a consequence of finding a new home for humans and nothing else.

And there's another scene which really pisses me off. There featured a cool, agile and skilful warrior who couldn't speak english. He had a duel with the leader of the mutated humans and won. But his throat was slashed by a child mutant. I just didn't get the rationale why the director would kill him off so pathetically and abruptly when he was obviously a good supporting actor. That scene made his life cheap, like he was made used of to kill off the leader and the director didn't want him in the movie anymore, so conveniently got rid him with the seemingly innocent child mutant. That scene just didn't make sense to me...

The opening was seat-gripping, the middle portion kept the suspense growing, but it was the ending which failed the movie. It's not a bad film, just a decently good-concept sci-fi film badly packaged. Acting was convincing, graphics and makeup were realistic, storyline was refreshing yet disturbing, but overall this movie would probably not fall under anyone's top 5 list of sci-fi movies.