One Sentence: Can you survive the horrible acting?
Rated: R
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Release Date: 04-Feb-2011
Nudity: None
So if you are like me, then you are confused about this movie. Is it a James Cameron movie? Is it a documentary? Is it a nature movie or a horror/thriller. I didn't know either and that is after being blasted a million times in the face with the trailer on TV. Just to let you know this is a 3-D underground thriller/family bonding movie, and James Cameron was the executive producer, which I think means, they put his name on it to get people into the theater and he got money for letting them put his name on the poster.
Sanctum opens in the worst possible ways. Stale introductions of characters who are not anyone you care about and they are thrust into a sweeping 3-D helicopter ride. Suddenly CAVE 3-D. Plot conflict foreshadowed. Then plot conflict. All of this being propelled forward by some truly horrible acting. So all of this is leading up to a bad movie, but something happened on the way down the cave. They shot 3-D underwater cave shots in very tight spaces, and well, that is some freaky shit. So when the actors can't talk, because they are wearing suits and the blueness and 3-D of it all washes over you and there is no sound, no air, and no light past the end of your head lamp. Well that is scary, and this is where Sanctum barely survives. It almost would of been a better movie without the human spirit element of the movie. I think just opening with the conflict and then ending with the end without all the fluff they tried to add to make it more about human spirit would of worked as a better movie. Instead the acting and lame subplot made this movie barely a 3 out of 5.
If you love 3-D and or cave diving you are probably crazy enough to justify paying for this movie in the theater, but I don't think it is scary enough, or good enough for the normal people out there to pay the 3-D price for this movie. I think it might be just as effective at home with a rental.
