Suitably well-designed from what must be the 'space-ship based horror' warehouse, PANDORUM is a good looking if goofy (unintentionally so) film that's a cobbled collection of parts from much better movies. Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid star as two ship-members that wake up after an eight year slumber to find a completely empty space ship and some ALIEN (*wink*) moving around in the darkness. It starts off well, but before you know it they're being chased by cast-offs from Neil Marshall's The Descent and getting into really awkward wire-work based Kung-Fu fights. The chills and mounting dread are forgotten and in their place we get quick over-sped (horribly so) chase scenes that add up to a puddle of CGI blood. Really, it's not that bad, and its nice to see some sci-fi horror this big budget and bloody, but its way too derivative and dumbed down to be considered anything more than disposable entertainment. Quaid does his gravitas bit and Ben Foster is all over the map when he opens his mouth (Is he weak, strong, knows something other people don't, insane? Who knows). It's well worth a watch, heads and shoulders above most dreck in theaters passing itself as horror - even though its not very scary. We'll just have to turn to the indie scene for our intelligent science fiction based horror.
No comments:
Post a Comment