Quick Review: Sanctum

"Hold on son, there will always a light at the very end of the tunnel..."

Sanctum (2011)

Overall Score: 60%

Certified: Goose

Score Breakdown:

Performance:55% Plot: 50% Script:50% Visuals:80% Music:80%

Another man-versus-nature movie based on Andrew Wight’s (the screenplay writer) true story, Sanctum, follows a team of underwater cave divers who was trapped deep down an unexplored cave system in Papua New Guinea (the movie was actually set in Queensland, Australia). The conflict begins when a typhoon struck and cut their only way off to escape to the surface. Panics set in as they have to alter plan and are forced to delve deeper into the Earth’s crust. Frank (Richard Roxburgh), a world-class caver including the pack leader and Josh (Rhys Wakefield), the 17-year-old spoiled son must struggle together with the financier of the journey, Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) and his girlfriend, Victoria (Alice Parkinson) to find any crack or seam which may lead to freedom.

I must say that the editing is truly impressive, those panoramic views really convince the audience’s doubts – why the team should risk their lives to go down there despite the fact that everything can go wrong at any time. In some numerous scenes where the team explores down into the deep sea water, the music background suddenly turned into airless breaths and the sensation of the cold and dark claustrophobia was all around me. So, technically speaking, James Cameron managed to put his best effort to make this piece of work a 3-D fun movie though Sanctum isn’t one of his best underwater flicks, like The Abyss(1989) and Titanic(1997). What makes it different from The Abyss is maybe this movie doesn’t have monsters in it, only human kind and father-son-conflict that matter. In addition, besides the technical shooting which was kinda hard to do considering it was set underwater and it needed a lot of skills, he didn’t do any further remarkable works in here, whilst Alister Grierson failed to direct the movie and turn it into an interesting suspense adventure.

However, I find the storyline too cliché; when you can almost figure out who’s next to die and who are able to make it out of this alive. It’s flat and predictable. Not only that, one of the major issues of this movie is its boring dialogues. It lacks of the characters exploration. Instead of the whole melodrama ideas, it’s supposed to be made into a documentary film by Andrew Wight’s real experiences. It’s also too shallow for a deep sea movie and I like Poseidon(2006) and The Descent(2005) way way better than this movie. So, what do you think guys? Interested?

 

 

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