Pandorum stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster in a better-than-average sci-fi thriller that keeps you guessing for quite a while before exposing its secret.

Quaid plays Lt. Payton and Foster plays Corporal Bower who awaken from hyper-sleep with no recollection of who they are or what their mission was. The darkened ship has apparently lost power. It appears they are alone on a ship which used to carry 60,000 inhabitants of Earth.

Bower sets out through tunnels to explore the ship and ultimately to access the nuclear-powered reactor for the ship. Guided by Payton’s radio instructions, he hears terrifying sounds which inform him that they are not alone on the ship. While trying to avoid whatever has taken over the ship, he discovers other crew members and together they seek to determine what has happened and how to save themselves.

Pandorum, we learn through their interactions, is a name given to a psychosis suffered by those left in deep-space for too long. Triggered by extreme emotional trauma, it causes paranoia, hallucinations and eventually uncontrollable rage leading to homicide. Some of the crew members may be suffering its affects.

The revelation of what exactly is on the ship is kept until well past the halfway point. Though we get to see glimpses along the way, evolving into full shots of “them”, we still don’t know what they are or how they got on board. The curiosity and building tension as the small party tries to get to the reactor is handled well and kept me intrigued.

Through another recovered crewman, a member of the flight crew, we discover a message was received informing the ship that Earth had been destroyed. The passengers and crew were all that was left of Earth, making the mission even more important.  

The movie does a better than adequate job of keeping you involved and caring about the surviving crew members. Though it is similar to other survivalist movies like Alien or I Am Legend, it still has enough plot difference to make worth watching, in my humble opinion.