Movie Review: Pandorum

This movie is relatively old for this year (since it was first seen on 2009), but I wasn't able to watch it before, so last night, I managed to get a copy to enjoy.  The story caught my interest in science fiction space movies.  The gist is about two flight crews who were lost in space and did not know their mission.

From the beginning to the end, the movie gripped me tight and didn't let me go.  I didn't want to miss any scene from the movie at all.  The first few scenes were intriguing enough as the lead, Bowers, a corporal awoke from the hypersleep incubator.  Probably, the ships' jump to hyperspace wasn't something that a normal human being could handle, hence the need for a hypersleep.  He was as clumsy as a newborn when he got out, and he was very dizzy as he tried to recollect his thoughts about his personality and his mission.

Later, he was joined by a lieutenant--Payton.  Payton was a mature man of almost 40 years, hence, his commands made more sense and was ultimately concerned with bringing back the ship's crew and get back again on their mission.

Apparently, their ship was a cargo ship.  They carried millions of humans inside a hypersleep incubators, and the ship was migrating people to a new planet.  They found Tanis, which had a sustainable environment for man.  It had an atmosphere, large body of water, and dirt.

Unfortunately for Bowers and Payton, they awoke and no other flight crews were there.  Hence, Bowers needed to explore the ship to find other crew members.  He ends up meeting a female, and a native American who were long awake, but didn't also had the recollection about the ship.  All they ever attended to was their survival--they needed to survive from cannibal beings who resided in the ship.

The next scenes were seat-gripping and jaw dropping as Bowers tried to deal with his new-found allies; try to escape from the cannibals; and work his way to the nuclear reactor.  The ship was dying out and he was the only technical guy who can jumpstart the reactor to save the ship and generate power for their needs.  Payton on the other hand was struggling with something else--Pandorum.

Pandorum was the psychological disease that gets to you when you're in space for too long.  People who suffer this are akin to those suffering from paranoia and schizophrenia.  Payton was suffering from Pandorum.  In the end was a different kind of twist, revealing who Payton really was.  Bowers gets to save few more people--1200 of them left alive.

I didn't find dramatic loopholes in the story, except the fact that there were missing pieces of the story that wasn't clearly easily connected to each other.  Like, the cannibals--were they residents of the new planet? Or were they people who suffered Pandorum and eventually evolved? How long should the hypersleep machines work? How was one vessel able to carry billions of humans aboard? If the ship was coined "Noah's ark", how are the species going to be pre-populated?

Nonetheless, acting was priceless.  None of them gave away the idea of doubt that their roles were half baked or just accessory to the story.  I think, this movie merits to be one of my favorite science fiction space movies, aside from Sunshine and the others.