Pandorum (*)

Pandorum. 108 mins. R. Directed by Christian Alvert. Written by Travis Milloy. Starring Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster.

Pandorum is like a reject SyFy movie of the week - something that should have never seen the light of day, let alone the inside of a movie theater. The story doesn't make a lick of sense and I don't even think I could tell you what it was about even if I tried, but here goes. Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster play space cadets fighting a bunch of Descent-type Gollum creatures as well as their inner demons, in an isolated spaceship set adrift. Or something of that sort. Honestly, I could care less. Pandorum is worthless on almost every single level. Dennis Quaid continues his decline as an actor - whatever goodwill he earned from his comeback in the early '00s is now long gone. Sure, the production design is decent here, but it's pretty hard not to screw that one up given the dark and hopeless space setting. Pandorum reeks of every kind of Alien knockoff film (Event Horizon, etc.) that has come before it. Indeed, the mood and atmosphere are cribbed directly from Alien, and there's an instant overfamiliarty with the movie that sets it off on the wrong foot, never allowing it to recover thereafter. Couple this with an erratic editing style and on-screen action that is chaotic and messy to the point where the audience can't even tell what's happening, and you get what is easily one of the worst movies of this or any other year.

- John