The first thing you need to know about Sanctum is that the acting sucks. This was evident from the jump, with the opening scenes especially hard to stomach with the awful accents, unnatural reactions and clumsy delivery of inane dialogue. It got a little better once in the cave, but not much…
The plot of the film itself isn’t much better unfortunately, taking a premise that has been used countless times yet somehow not electing to include some of the elements from former films that actually work.
The basic premise – actually the entire premise – is a bunch of guys and gals are exploring Esa Ala, a vast cave system in Papua New Guinea that stretches kilometres underground with much of the cave underwater.
The dive, mission, gig (?) is funded by a gung-ho American billionaire with a wild streak, who has coincidentally showed up with his adrenalin junkie trophy girlfriend being tailed closely by bad weather. This may or may not have everything or nothing to do with what follows – but it sure doesn’t help.
The rest of the small crew are a tight band lead by a driven and determined lifelong explorer and his young resentful kid who just wants to be held.
Once the inevitable cave-in demands the ‘always onward’ approach the action is formulaic at best and confusing and frustrating at worst. Unfortunately way too much of the latter to allow Sanctum to even be considered adequate.
Perhaps the most unforgivable issue is in the camera work. Too herky jerky and disjointed, never thinking to to step back and take in the huge cave vistas and natural beauty that we are repeatedly told is everywhere. I am all for the claustrophobic editing to create suspense and unease – that’s what made The Descent so good – but here you just can’t tell what is going on.
In one scene a diver becomes trapped, or snagged, or panics, or something. The camera was so focused on a frenzy of movement without a clean look at anything to be able to tell. My wife asked what was going on, leaving me to jump to a judgment of snagging, but even a quick rewind and four eyes watching intently gave us nothing. Neither of us had any idea.
With the team dynamic fracturing under pressure it became the usual guessing game of who would be there near the end, who would buy it in the worst way and who would flip out or plain go bad, but with so many lame characters and awful actors this wasn’t even vaguely entertaining. I wondered at many stages if it wouldn’t have been better for everyone involved if the entire roof collapsed, crushing everyone in it and saving us from watching this lame effort.
So in summary; a poorly acted, badly directed, awfully filmed effort with bland characters and a lazy plot. This could have taken place on a mountain with minimal adaptation. Or a deserted warehouse. Or in space. It would have made no difference. But all this means is that we shouldn’t blame the cave. Everyone else involved in this mess is at least partially guilty.
Apparently this film was only made when master director James Cameron – himself a keen caver – chatted to a mate about a real life caving experience and decided that somewhere there was a in film in it. James went out and found a director and lo and behold here we have this piece of shit.
I just wish Cameron was as intense and focused in his search for prospective directors and crews as he is when he is behind the lens.
Final Rating – 5 / 10. In short, when a film comes along that makes me remember The Cave even a little more fondly, something is very wrong.
