The initial set-up of Pandorum – two men wake out of hyper-sleep locked in a small section of a great creaking space hulk with no idea of where or who they are, and with the threat of a psychosis-inducing space disease hanging over them – suggests we’re in for a tightly-contained psychological horror. But while Dennis Quaid stays put, junior partner Ben Foster scrambles out through a ventilation shaft and the film sprawls into an SF action movie, with Foster on a mission to save humanity before time runs out while mashing up the underwhelming mutant creatures that have taken over the ship.
The two elements never really hang together, and the storyline is riddled with inconsistencies and nonsense. But Pandorum has an appealingly grungy Alien-meets-videogame æsthetic, a hot German scientist-turned-warrior chick in Antje Traue, solid acting from its leads, and a couple of decent plot twists – and it sweeps you through its jumble of borrowings by keeping the tension ramped up throughout.
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