By Morgan P Salvo
Two things are really not working for me anymore: “Based on true facts” and “Shot in real 3-D”. Just the mere fact that James Cameron produced Sanctum, the 3-D cinema magic should deliver. It doesn’t. I know I’m not known for being lavish with my praise, but this truly is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
The water-soaked plot involves an underwater cave diving team on an expedition to explore New Guinea's Esa-ala Caves, one of the least accessible cave systems in the world. When a cyclone causes a flash flood to cut off their exit, they are caught in a life-or-death situation. With supplies dwindling, the divers must navigate a treacherous labyrinth to find a new escape route or die in the process.
Sounds promising right? What could have been a nice harrowing survival tale instead give us yet another father son reconciliation account through cathartic events, done poorly. Setting us up with transparencies like…Will the pouty-boy-man and gruff-strict-dad reconcile their differences? Will their survival tactics intertwine? Will they find out something they never knew about each other and themselves? Will it dig as deep as the cave they so expertly plunder through? Will the duo bond like no other has before them? Will there be painful decisions made? Will domestic squabbles take on the mentality of the father-son-oedipal complex pleasing each other till it hurts? Gimme a break.
From the first line of dialogue Sanctum feels forced and phony. The screenplay seems like it was taken from a joke book of clichés. The acting is atrocious throughout. This Aussie wannabe action yarn comes off like a lame version of The Descent without the cool monsters.
Carl Ioan Gruffudd (Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four) annoys us instantly with his take on his role, exposing a fake personality that only lame actors can convey. Richard Roxburgh(Moulin Rouge) as Frank has the juiciest role but well marinated in sea water no original lines. Dan Wyllie’s George has a moment or two, climber Victoria (Alice Parkinson) is all wisecrack and worry (never a good combo) and Rhys Wakefield’s estranged 17-year old son, Josh, is all cry baby with unbelievable mood swings that are conveyed with a lot of “NO… NO… NO’s!” The enthusiastic talks that emanate from all the characters takes on a children’s Discovery Channel approach .Wretched dialogue to invent drama is inserted to establish a “story” that went on behind cave doors, relying heavily on all the conventions of unoriginal, over-used catch phrases stolen from countless other bad movies. If divers and underwater explorers turned first time writers Andrew Wigh, John Garvint are going to call it “based on true facts” then they owe it to us to make up something good and not this terribly generic.
The claustrophobic Sanctum’s 3-D tries it’s hardest to enthrall, as camera and character squiggle through tiny tunnels. There was no need for 3-D effect –we’re right there with them without having to see pockmarked rocks in the foreground. We’re constantly barraged with sweeping emotional stirring music to invoke the bosom to swell. The music and redundant dialogue never fills the cave’s empty space only the water pouring is plugs the gaps.
Director Alister Grierson was obviously under Producer Cameron’s thumb trying to invoke an Abbyss feel but comes off more like Cameron’s Piranha Part Two: The Spawning without the demon fish or any imaginative ideas.Everything is so beyond predictable that this movie could make one feel down right clairvoyant. When Frank teaches Josh Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan poem it just about threw me out of the theatre. My feet were poised to bolt. Believe me if this one doesn’t make number one on my worst top ten list next year it will be a miracle.
Just recently a more effective survival movie came out (127 hrs) and one guy and rock were more intense and entertaining than this entire expedition and a cave. Sanctum’s litany of bad calls is endless. Let’s just call it a fiasco and be done with it —I’d rather watch my crunchy cereal flakes get soggy than this watered down disaster. I came out of the theater gasping for fresh air after being submerged in this atrocity for 1hr and 43 minutes. Oh… what a few cool monsters at the bottom could’ve done for this flick. Sanctum is all wet
SANCTUM
Starring Richard Roxburgh, Rhys Wakefield, Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Parkinson, Dan Wyllie
Directed by Alister Grierson
¼ star
(Only because I like underwater footage)
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