The plot centers around a vampire who doesn’t like being a vampire (what, eternal youth, power and indestructibility not as much fun as you thought they’d be?), who by chance encounters the dwindling human resistance.  Proving himself a  friend to sheeple everywhere, the bipedal cattle bring this hematologist in on their plan to cure the vampiric infection.

The film is filled with those clever little gimmicks, like “daylight” driving windows, tinted 100% opaque, and a warren of underground tunnels that allows the leeches to travel during daylight hours. Willem Dafoe plays a blue-collar vampire who accidentally cured himself, and with the help of Ethan Hawke, intends to help cure all of humanity. Meanwhile, the blood supply is out, and the vampires are tearing off their neckties and degenerating into the nosferatu-esque and savage true vampiric form. Gross.

Half-developed characters stumble through subplots, while the audience is treated to constant barrage of surreal gore, squishing noises and vampires that are so starved, they turn on one another.

The films true weakness comes in the form of the cure – a shake and bake solution requiring neither hematologist nor faith nor garlic/silver oxide solution to achieve. Not impressed.

True vampire fans will enjoy this classic tale of moderate redemption wrapped in Big Business Dystopia, but those demanding substance will find the film without much of a bite.

Originality is for all intents and purposes a finite commodity in today’s saturated markets. That said, the makers of Pandorum took some standard sci-fi elements and forged them into an interesting story, if not an original one.

We join the survivors of a colony expedition in deep space, as they attempt to piece together what’s happened to their ship, crew and mission while they’ve been in cryogenic stasis. Add a little “I Am Legend” and some lamoe action (last man on earth - thanks Max Brooks for that brilliant term!) and a splash of 30 Days of Night and you’ve got a movie. More precisely, you’ve got the film Pandorum.

Good effects, predictable plot, and cannibals all take a backseat a rather subdued but competent performance by Dennis Quaid. Personally, I think Dennis is capable of much more, but was working a character that was rather two dimensional.

Regardless, Pandorum plays like an easy sci-fi flick, and the DVD will make great shelf filler, being pulled off occasionally when a guest says “Oh, I sorta wanted to see that.”

What we have in this film is the fourth installment of a rapidly failing franchise. We can all look back into the dim memories of the early 80’s and see Arnold Schwarzenegger terminating his way through Los Angeles. But since those mythical times, the Terminator’s tale has become a tired cliché with episodic installments each trying to “out-explode” the last one.

I saw it anyway. And, frankly, I was pleasantly surprised. The plot certainly was not without holes, but it was simple enough to not get bogged down in insulting exposition. There were enough characters to take the focus away from Bale, who, while a fine actor, felt flat and uninspired in the role of John Connor, Savior of the Human Race. In fact, the other characters carried much of the emotional burden of the film.

As expected in the 21^st century, the special effects were excellent. And while I still can’t figure out why, during the final epic battle in the Terminator factory, Skynet didn’t just turn on more terminators (since, you know, one was giving our heroes a run for it), I enjoyed the film very much. Though it’s my own personal bias, I feel I’ve got to pipe up about Time Travel. In a nutshell, it’s can’t happen. Information as we know it cannot travel faster than the event that caused it. No effect then cause. So why can’t Hollywood drop the Jack-Tripper Time Travel Trope and invest just a few more seconds into their writing? I know time travel was an integral part of the Terminator plot, and wasn’t so much so in Terminator: Salvation, however, John Connor was well aware of the potential for paradox and based his actions on that knowledge. Yawn.

The action sequences were top-notch and I think we can all agree that bringing more hardware to bear on the Terminator problem is exactly what we needed to do.

The cast was expertly selected, each filling their role to a tee. Of course, there’s no end to background material, and I doubt seriously that once on set the question was asked “What’s my motivation?” Still, McCoy and Spock stole the show, barreling over even James T. Kirk in their replication of past favorites.

There were some plot problems, however. First off, “red matter” was just a little silly. The armed and armored Romulan mining vessel scrubbed a whole fleet? What are they mining, Death Stars? Then of course, there was the Deus Ex Machina moments – like Kirk happening to land within walking distance of Future Spock’s self imposed exile cave. Another major problem was what I refer to as the “cheat.”

When Sulu is unable to get the Enterprise into gear we miss a major space battle. I don’t know about you, but I was there *for* the space battle. Simply put, we were cheated, either by a studio’s graphics budget or a director who thought his plot was better served by flaming all of Starfleet and denying three generations of loyal fans a chance to witness it. In either case, we deserved more.

That said, Star Trek was overall a fine piece of sci-fi cinema.