THE CRITIC-AL LIST
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

The Horseman
Pandorum (1)
Pandorum (2)
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
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The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
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Last House On The Left
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Adventureland
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Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Uninvited
Amusement
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The RIse OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Christian Alvart. Starring Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, and Antje Traue. USA. Horror/Sci-Fi. 108 minutes.

Blu-ray and DVD release date 15th February 2010 - Blu-ray £14.99 and DVD £9.99 from Play.com

Did you wonder why FrightFest showed CASE 39 this year? Cast your minds back to 2005 when we premiered ANTIBODIES and invited German director Christian Alvart over to present it. We all liked the experience so when we were programming FrightFest 2009 we thought what a great idea it would be to show this long on the shelf Renee Zellweger demonic tale and his very latest production PANDORUM. We’d invite him over again to introduce both and hopefully the two film distributors involved would help us out with the cost of his trip. The best laid plans…. All went well opening CASE 39, despite the delayed release being put back yet again to 2010. Opening the PANDORUM box proved the problem. And now we can all see why.

It’s terrible. An intergalactic Ark mission to the planet Tanis to solve Earth’s population problem goes horribly wrong in this muddled combination of a Travis Milloy spec script and Alvart’s NO WHERE screenplay into a dull and often incomprehensible sci-fi shocker. For when astronauts Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Bower (Ben Foster) awake disorientated from hyper-sleep on board the Elysium spaceship to complete their assignment they are hunted by passengers mutated into monsters during the 125 years the journey has lasted. That’s if the title ‘Orbital Dysfunctional Syndrome’, a sort of paranoid isolation sickness, manifesting itself as a delusional God complex doesn’t get them first. Ooh, the futuristic suspense is killing! PITCH BLACK, the ALIEN movies, THE ABYSS and producer Paul W.S. Anderson’s own RESIDENT EVIL franchise are obvious reference points in this overly familiar hopeless mix leading to the ludicrous twist ending and ‘Paradise Found’ WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE riff. But it’s essentially THE DESCENT in Outer Space with none of that classic’s chills, thrills, menace or horror, just jerky quick cutting supplying mechanical jolts against a dingy industrial backdrop. With the sets looking like the EVENT HORIZON ones taken out of storage and the Stan Winston Studio’s silly stalking creatures dragging the ‘must restart the reactor’ finale into further non-excitement, nothing is convincing in Alvart’s heavy handed and barely adequate action frightener. Where’s the unusual verve he brought to ANTIBODIES? Lost in the effort to go Hollywood and browbeaten by the development hell brigade one suspects. The competent cast tries extracting interest from the poorly conceived concept – but if you can’t guess what’s going on between Quaid and mysterious interloper Cam Gigandet then Be A-Freud, Be Very A-Freud! The inclusion of Cung Le and Antje Traue playing astronauts from other prior missions aboard the Elysium add absolutely nothing to the plot merely further confusion.  Like the blue-lit flashes heralding the approach of the Jason Voorhees look-alike baddies, PANDORUM goes nowhere fast. Only not fast enough!

Alan Jones

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