Magnificent desolation - Buzz Aldrin’s lyrical description of the moonscape, as seen from its lonesome surface - has inspired poets and artists. But to science-fiction filmmakers and writers, the phrase usually inspires terror. Travel to Mars, the stars, and beyond often risks a killer case of space madness. So it goes, screamingly, in “Pandorum,’’ a highly effective sci-fi thriller set during a 2174 mission to colonize a far-off, newly discovered Earth-like planet.
One crewman (Ben Foster) revives from deep hypersleep into a nightmare. The ship is ominously dark, its reactor broken. Bad signs - spiders in the air shafts! Oozing crud on the walls! - ought to alert the crew, if not the audience, that they’ve slumbered too long. Despite help from the ranking officer (Dennis Quaid), the crisis worsens. It’s testament to Quaid’s skill as an actor that he seems genuinely creeped out by the situation, even though he’s played astronauts so often he seems qualified to pilot the space shuttle.
