Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Pandorum

Go To

  • Broken Base: A weird example of a specific trait: some viewers think the pacing of the film is too slow, while others view it as too fast.
  • Complete Monster: Corporal Gallo of the Elysium decided that, without Earth, morality meant nothing. After murdering the rest of his flight team, Gallo awoke other members of the 60,000 strong crew from cryo-sleep and drove them into the bowels of the ship, forcing them to murder each other and cannibalize the dead for his own amusement. He left the survivors awake to continue their bloodsport. Over the generations a combination of Pandorum and being fed an enzyme meant to speed their adaptation to Tanis caused these survivors to degenerate into feral creatures with a bloody culture and a drive to hunt any other survivors Gallo would awaken. Periodically putting himself back into hypersleep to prolong his life, Gallo reigns over the ship, playing sadistic games with the people he awakens by sending them off to be hunted. Gallo later murders another survivor himself, attempting to prevent Bower from escaping so he can continue ruling his own twisted little kingdom.
  • Critical Backlash: It flopped at the box office (particularly due to low promotion and a quite limited distribuition), and got mixed reviews from critics. The fanbase has grown every year since its release, and nowadays it's viewed as a very underrated sci-fi horror.
  • Critical Dissonance: The critics were mostly mixed or negative about the movie and it failed at the box office (though this was mostly due to many people not hearing about it), but as shown by the IMDB and Netflix ratings, many people see it as an actually good film, and some even consider it as one of the best films of the genre in years.
  • Cult Classic: Despite bombing and getting mixed reviews, it went on to generate a following. YourMovieSucks.org recommended it in a 2012 video among other horror films he considers underrated.
  • Friendly Fandoms: The fans of Event Horizon are very welcoming to this film, some considering it a Creator-Driven Successor to Event Horizon, given the involvement of Paul W.S. Anderson.
  • Ham and Cheese: Cam Gigandet is clearly having a lot of fun portraying a mad Pandorum sufferer.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: A ship named Elysium as an ill-fated salvation for humanity. Fast forward a few years and the next famous Elysium would fare a little better.
  • Narm Charm: One would think that Dennis Quaid's...erm...'emphatic' delivery of the "I SAID STAND DOWN, CORPORAL!" would incite raucous laughter, but the tone of the rest of the movie has a very subductive effect upon one's sense of humor.
  • Older Than They Think: There are a lot of people that think this movie is a rip off of Dead Space, but little do they know that Pandorum began filming in August of 2008, before Dead Space's release.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Norman Reedus has a small role as a man called Shepherd who gets quickly eaten by the Hunters.
  • Special Effects Failure: When the reactor is set off, killing the Hunters, it's rather dodgy CGI.
  • They Copied It, So It Sucks!: A few people complained that the Hunters looked too similar to the Crawlers from The Descent.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: Some great uses of lighting and filters to create a sense of claustrophobia - not to mention a brilliantly designed set.
  • Squick:
    • Finding the main Hunter nest at the bottom of the reactor and they're writhing over each other in apparent ecstasy.
    • When Bower and Nadia fall through the corpse hatch into the blood and body part soup and have to remain still with their noses just above the "water."

Top