Pandorum

"Holy zombie apocalypse! I wanted to see a hardcore sci-fi movie, and I ended up watching another freaking zombie movie?" Something along these lines was going through my mind halfway through Pandorum.

But oh no, Pandorum is so much more than another zombie flick. Yes, there are zombies in it. Legions of flesh eating, martial arts skilled zombies. They're not called like that of course, but the resemblance to, let's say, the dudes from "I am Legend", is uncanny.

I think the writers knew zombies movies have been done to death and they were ideas hunting: the complete destruction of Planet Earth? Nope, it's been done before. A ship carrying our last hope? Done before. Something about cryogenics? Done before. Space dementia? Done before, and much, much better. Colonising alien worlds? Done before. Erm, spaceship with people crawling on dark corridors with blood smeared all over themselves, running away from some evil monsters? Done, done, done.

Well, then, how about ALL THOSE THINGS PUT TOGETHER?

And so we end up with Pandorum, an amazing mess of a sci-fi/horror movie, that in the end still manages to save itself from, well, itself, by having a few plot twists and a cool ending that I really wasn't expecting.

The plot? Well, as I said, spaceship, mission: last hope of humanity, zombies, space dementia, cool ending.

Rating? 6/10. Could have been much worse.

Planet 51

Ok, so since I set myself the goal to review all of the movies I watch (mostly for myself, to keep track of it), I guess it's only fair to review Planet 51, an animated film (not Pixar though, this one's made by Illion and it's actually their first movie).

Now this movie got pretty bad ratings and even worse reviews. It rips off a lot of stuff from other movies (the robotic probe, Rover, is clearly inspired by Wall-E), the plot is predictable and also has been done before (see Battle for Terra), the humour is either too non-offensive or too offensive, depending on the reviewer.

I, on the other hand, found myself entertained by this movie (and to be honest, that's all I expected from it. If you want something deeper I guess you should look in some other places than an animation about aliens, that targets mostly teenagers).

The movie is filled with cultural references, including the title. I guess it's the only way in which it entertains. So we have there: Area 51 (the name of the planet hints at it, and there is actually a secret underground military base in a desert of the planet), the hippy movement, the UFO community movement, conspiracies surrounding NASA (the robotic probe manages to completely miss the civilisation on Planet 51, due to its obsession for collecting and photographing rocks), sci-fi, fanzines, horror flicks from the 50s, plus many other references to movies like Alien, Terminator, E.T.

About the plot: A superficial, charismatic, incompetent but well-intended American astronaut lands on Planet 51 expecting to find it devoid of life. But the planet is harbouring a civilisation of green and cute people (they also have antennas!) that are in a development stage corresponding to the American 50s. Now the astronaut, with the help of a few locals, must try to escape the local military, who view him as a threat (and also want to experiment on him), and get to his ship in orbit before it leaves without him.

Make what you will of it, but I give it a 6.5/10.

P.S. And I definitely liked it better than Battle for Terra.