Sanctum looks expensive. There are all kinds of massive sets built to look like the interiors of impossibly gigantic caves, and they are routinely flooded with what must be most of the water in Australia. Somehow, they did this for 30 million dollars. Jim Cameron (exec producer credit) probably has that much in his couch cushions, but whatever the film’s faults, it looks like a movie that cost three times that amount. Maybe they got free use of JC’s Titanic-era diving goodies? Sanctum looks good enough, in fact, that I was a bit distracted sometimes trying to imagine how various set-pieces were filmed and which parts were being done by stunt people. I saw this in IMAX 3D, and in terms of raw visual experience Sanctum is vast, with all the emotional charge that comes from discovering a new country. The caves look like alien worlds, ancient and futuristic at once. Their scale reminds humans of their place, and their relative importance.
So I guess what I’m saying is the caves are really the star of this picture, and they acquit themselves admirably, both the real caves and the sets. Where this movie runs into trouble is with its supporting cast: a regrettable script and a brace of uniformly mediocre actors.
In a movie like this, script shouldn’t matter all that much. And it doesn’t, if it’s at least good enough to stay below your conscious notice. It only starts to get in the way when people say such clunky-sounding things that you zone out and begin to wonder why you’ve never heard anyone talk like that.
That happens with a fair amount of regularity in this movie, and it’s compounded by the cast’s soap-opera caliber delivery of said clunky lines. I’m inclined to forgive the players, because I can’t imagine how I would have delivered that exposition-only dialogue any better. I could easily forgive them if they had created any characters that were deep enough for me to be interested in their plight. Sadly, this did not happen.
Dear reader, I defy you to find a major character in this film who is not in most ways loathsome. I challenge you to care whether any of them make it through this lavishly photographed ordeal alive.
Our lead is a teenage boy who is whinier and more naive than Skywalker in “A New Hope.” His father, the expedition leader, makes the Great Santini look like a care-bear. The American Billionaire character (played by an Aussie actor sporting a now-you-see-it, now you don’t Yank accent) is less self-aware than the cast of Jersey Shore. There are a few characters who don’t exhibit the signs of advanced mental illness, but those characters don’t get to talk much. The characters with a semblance of humanity exist only to suffer and die, and their only reward is the moral education of our callow protagonist.
There are genuine thrills in the action sequences – the sense of claustrophobia is often quite palpable, and the characters are put through an obstacle course of remarkably sadistic design.
I won’t say that you shouldn’t see it. This movie is more about capturing a setting than telling a story, and the lazy script doesn’t keep it from presenting the caving world as a place that inspires both awe and terror. So long as you aren’t expecting too much, it’s a very pretty and authentically creepy night at the movies. I would suggest skipping the IMAX though – I don’t think you get much for the extra money and I’m not sure the 3d experience was shot with the IMAX aspect ratio in mind. I left the theater with a bit of a headache, and I can’t be sure the movie didn’t contribute to it. I felt like I had to hold my head very still throughout or risk a little motion sickness.
The trailer, which surprisingly doesn’t show all of the best stuff, is below.
