Playlist: Pandorum

You've been here before: Earth of the future has a foot and 4 toes in the grave and our desperate descendants have to seek a new planetary home to slowly ravage. You know the spaceship, too: all exposed wires and flickering lights (at least our crappy work ethic will survive. Speaking of which, sorta, what are the chances that people will be speaking exactly the same as we speak today centuries into the future? Right, none. I know why movies overlook this. Because it's a movie. I'm just saying). Oh, and since non-hyperdrive interstellar travel is such a drag, someone inevitably gets a case of cabin fever and goes all space Shining. "Three years into their shift, one of their officers had a psychological breakdown. The doctors referred to it as ODS symptom. The privates, we call it Pandorum. It drove him insane. He became convinced that the flight was cursed. Evil."

Ooh, right? Like I said, nothing new. But, and here's where this whole post reverses trajectory, or something. This is a good movie. A goof sci-fi movie, which sadly, is saying something considering the quickie Syfy dreck we have to endure. And by "have to" I mean because we're idiots. No, this is a film that takes a standard premise and just does it well. Nothing spectacular (though I want to shave with one of those laser razors), but a lot that was solid. I didn't even mind that the double twist ending was visible from a light year away (Science in your face!). It wasn't played for shock value so much as just the resolution to the plot.  

That quote, btw, was from Dennis Quaid, who is the big name here, though not really the star. That goes to Ben Foster who has to race to save the ship's reactor (along with Milla Jovovich knockoff, Antje Traue. Seeing as this was made by the producers of the Resident Evil series I can't imagine that was an accident.) Foster's been putting together a nice run of strong performances in smaller movies. (One more casting bit: I hate Cam Gigandet. Not in an Affleck way, but in a this guy is way too good at playing a prick way. he probably gives kittens CPR in real life. Unlike Affleck, who eats them.)