Sanctum (Universal Pictures)
Macho Bonding
Lets get it clear from the start, James Cameron is one of the Producers of the new film Sanctum. He is not the writer, director, or creator of this film. So if you are hoping it will be another Avatar or Titanic, forget it!
What it is, is a movie about a crew of people exploring underground caves in New Guinea. It is supposedly based on a true story but the acting is so hammy and the situations so staged that taking it at all credibly is almost an impossibility.
You have a standard stock of characters. There is the rugged leader of the group, Frank, along with his estranged son, Josh. Then there is the couple who is romantically involved, Carl and Victoria. Plus there are a few others who we never really get to know. They are down in this cave/cavern really far down beneath the surface and a horrible storm comes on up top. There exit is flooded so they have to look for another way out. While finding this way out most of them die.
It is the basic Ten Little Indians plot where you place a group in a confined area and systematically eliminate them one after another. The fun is in seeing who survives. Or in the case of this film, the lack of fun is in seeing who survives.
The theme of the film seems to be how to train your son to be macho. Frank (Richard Roxburgh) is forever trying to impart the ways to manhood to his son. He shows him how to swim underwater, scale walls, kill someone to put them out of their suffering, and how not to break down when you lose a friend. Josh (Rhys Wakefield) seems to absorb all this slowly but surely.
Ioan Gruffudd is probably the best known actor in the film since he was in The Fantastic Four movies. He plays Carl who is the financier of the trip, and also a man who thinks only of his own safety and survival. He is not a group player.
It took me a while to determine who Roxburgh is. I knew I had seen him in another movie and about halfway through this one a light went on. Roxburgh played the sniveling Duke who chased after Nicole Kidmans character in Moulin Rouge. The vast difference between that role and this one shows how versatile an actor he is.
The movie is rated R for violence and profanity.
Nothing about Sanctum makes it worth seeing. It has characters you never care about; tense situations that dont grip you; and an ending that is a relief because it means your claustrophobia can relax.
Some may enjoy the dangerous situations but that is all. In total this movie leaves a lot to be desired.
I scored Sanctum an inner 3 out of 10.
