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Rating: Country: U.S.A./Germany Release Date: January 19, 2010 Distributor: Anchor Bay Director: · Christian Alvart Cast: · Dennis Quaid · Ben Foster · Cam Gigandet · Antje Traue · Cung Le · Eddie Rouse Related Sites: · Pandorum Official Site Grade: B+

Nearly 150 years in the future, Earth's resources are at this point virtually wiped out, with the planet on the brink of total collapse. But hope for the survival of the human race has been found with the discovery of Tanis, a far distant planet that's very similar to Earth in terms of atmosphere, water and plant life. The people of Earth have launched an immense spaceship, the Elysium, with a population of thousands immersed in a cryogenic sleep, along with everything needed to turn Tanis into a new Earth. Now, mysteriously, two of Elysium's flight crew, Bower and Payton, have been awoken from their sleep to find that something has gone wrong on their ship, with both having to deal with memory loss from such a long sleep and the possibility of a type of space madness called Pandorum.

When I originally saw "Pandorum" in a theatre, I have to admit, I was let down by it and just thought the thing was crammed with too many elements. Now, sitting back at home and watching the DVD of "Pandorum," I have to reverse that and actually say I had a very good time with it, and in no small part due to the fact that this has a lot going on.

"What? First you didn't like it because it had too much stuff going on and now you do like it? What's up with that?" (That's me imagining what other people might be thinking from reading the start of this.)

I really don't know what to tell you. It might be the fact that having seen it already, I knew what to expect and this time could just relax and enjoy the show, or it might be the fact that I was just leisurely sitting back in my own home and not having to make any preparations about going to see a movie theatrically. I'm willing to chalk it up to both of those reasons.

Regardless, I did have a good time the second time with this, and I really have to give credit to director Christian Alvart for the amount of thought that he put into this. Yeah, there is a lot that goes on here, but the way it unfolds isn't that dissimilar to some science fiction novels. (At the start of this, I was somehow in the mind of Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination kind of thinking of "Pandorum"'s Bower character along some of the same lines as Bester's Gully Foyle -- I know there's a lot more to Foyle, but I expect it must've been more due to the bleakness of what the situations were like.) Alvart's really put some thought into the ideas of what realistically deep space travel would be like, and because of the time that has passed during this story, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that all that does happen on the Elysium really could happen.

It's a dark movie to be sure, both in it's tone and it's shooting style, but still there's some really nice production design at work here as well as some solid work from the film's lead actors, Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid.

Ben Foster has been one of these guys who's been fun to watch with each successive project that he does. He's never been the same sort of character twice and I think this guy is so good that somewhere down the road he'll probably get some sort of industry recognition for it. His Bower has a lot to him, and it's fun to watch Foster put those pieces together as he's coming out of his cryogenic sleep. Quaid is always a solid guy, and I have to say I enjoy seeing him in parts like this, and he doesn't let me down.

Anchor Bay has put together a pretty nice package for the DVD release of "Pandorum." The presentation, though dark (due to it's style), is still sharp and crisp where it needs to be and it's fully presented in it's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It's sound quality is nicely done with any decent 5.1 surround system.

I'm a big fan of audio commentaries on DVDs and "Pandorum"'s doesn't disappoint. it features a commentary track with director Christian Alvart and producer Jeremy Bolt, and they're quite adept at keeping you abreast of what they did while watching this. Good stuff here. There's also a good assortment of deleted, alternate and extended scenes, some of which I wish were still in the film (Bower fixing his first meal coming out of his sleep being one of them). Some of the scenes look as though they've been processed for the final film and others still look as though some more work needed to be done.

There are three featurettes as well. The World of Elysium is a direct behind the scenes look at the making of the movie and though it's short (around 15 minutes, give or take a few minutes) it is informative. What Happened to Nadia's Team and Flight Crew Training are two specially made shorts that don't give you any more to the making of the film, but more offer some additional back story to the main tale of "Pandorum."

If you missed "Pandorum" in theatres, well now's a good time to give it a shot with this nice package from Anchor Bay. If you were like me, saw it and were originally disappointed, well, I'd suggest taking another look at it. I honestly wasn't expecting my opinion to change when I was offered this to review, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and now very happy to have watched this again (and I'll surely view it more down the road).