I feel it’s imperative that I share this with all of you: I hate Dennis Quaid. I will always hate Dennis Quaid. I do not understand how he has an acting career. This is now a firmly-stated position that I do not intend to move from.

That said, the movie of the week is “Pandorum.” I picked it up in memory of “Dead Space,” in which the subpar writing was made up for with unabashed brutality and beautiful, yet disturbing cinematics. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it was an animated movie based on a video game, so subpar writing was to be expected. But they appeared to be quite similar: ship stranded in space. Lost crew. Monsters stalking the ship. Group of survivors in a bleak and dark race against time to survive.

Of course, as is often the case, the movie was bad – but not terrible. It didn’t make me want to scream at the TV or burn anything, which is saying something, but not nearly enough. It was just an alright sci-fi horror flick. Its strong suits were interesting, such as the rational explination for why there were monsters on the ship and the nature of the venture. Despite its usual clunkiness, I’ll even praise the mechanic of memory loss during “hypersleep,” which is a state of suspended animation. The brain piecing itself back together after inactivity was a fascinating concept and a good exploration of technology’s effect on man.

What was not interesting, however, was the rest of the movie. First, the monsters. No. Just no. They’re explained as the humans escaping a dying earth set free by an insane officer and adapting more quickly due to implants to become cannibal monsters. Sure, it’s good sci-fi explanation. Do you know what made the aliens in “Alien” so scary, or the necromorphs in “Dead Space?” Because the scariest thing you can face in a sci-fi setting is totally, completely unknown and unfathomable. The tribal society they had on the ship was just not as intimidating as the mysterious and disturbing nature of aliens in sci-fi horror movies that are actually scary.

The film’s namesake was incredibly limp. The idea is that, after long enough in space travel, people can just go insane from this condition named Pandorum. No explanation is given. They just crack. It’s incredibly weakly-supported and it’s a clear excuse to work in a secondary (who was supposed to be primary) villain. We’ll get to him and my only actual rage against this movie later. The survivors are uninteresting and unrealistic, warrior people who survive by hunting and trapping, which would make sense in a forest, but this is on a spaceship. They take the metaphor of this being a sort of primal jungle so far so that it becomes completely unbelievable.

One of the main characters is played by Ben Foster, whom I actually kind of like. And it’s not that he doesn’t do his job well, it’s just that there’s nowhere for the characters to develop. They’re always kind of the same people. That being said, Dennis Quaid plays the other main character. And I hate him. I really, truly do. I didn’t used to! But after seeing more and more of his work, I think he’s a terrible, lifeless actor and this is no exception. His portrayal of the insane officer with a messiah complex is weak at best, overbearing at worst. It got old within a few minutes of him on screen. He never portrays emotion accurately, he can’t deliver lines and even his movement looks off. He just is not good at all.

At the end of the day, the core problem is simple: the plot is forced and sort of meager. The whole movie is trying to restart the ship’s reactor, then get everyone off. Except it hardly draws in on it and all the attachments end up smothering the central plot. The story doesn’t go anywhere. And at the end of the day, it’s just no fun to watch a static story.

I didn’t hate “Pandorum.” It had a few moments. But overall, it was a film with weak writing, weak characters and a weak plot. Just a weak movie. While I wouldn’t spurn it and would even reccomend it to sci-fi diehards, the general audience, self included, will not enjoy this movie. It just doesn’t have much kick.