Review: SANCTUM - A Disappointingly Sloppy B-Movie

By Shaun Munro / July 1, 2011

rating: 2

Even a seal of approval from 3D maestro James Cameron can only take a film so far, as multi-dimensional cave-diving thriller Sanctum proves, a hackneyed, poorly-acted, glorified B-movie dressed up in some snazzy new clothing. Aside from a few creepy moments and solid 3D work, Sanctum categorically fails to realise the expansive beauty of its unfathomable setting, and worse still, neglects to exploit its intriguingly claustrophobic premise for the full effect. A team of intrepid thrill-seekers, led by arrogant honcho Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffud), begin an adventure exploring a complex cave system, which will find them deep in the Earth's "sanctum", a mostly submerged series of tunnels that provides sights the human eye has never before glimpsed. Meanwhile, a more hardened group of explorers, led by the trusty Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh), are already down there, and once the caves are flooded by a cyclone, the two groups must band together to try and find a way out of their predicament. There's no mistaking the sheer production quality of Sanctum's 3D work, evident from an establishing scene in which background light blindingly penetrates to us through the gaps in a foregrounded object. However, the dialogue is the corny mulch of a lurid B-movie, and the CGI is mostly naff; this would of course be fine if director Alister Grierson knew that he was making a B-movie which, given the array of false sentimentality on offer, he ostensibly doesn't. The cave system itself is without question an awe-inspiring sight, and the opening exterior shots lend some particular weight to the credibility of the 3D. The novelty, though, quickly wears thin, and from the distractingly hammy supporting bit-parters and mugging stars who should know better (that's you, Mr. Gruffud) to the absurdly bombastic score, there's little surprise that this comes from a band of people who are mostly inexperienced in the art of the high-concept thriller movie. Some occasional zingers of dialogue do indeed abound though - try to hold a straight face at "this hole's tighter than a nun's nasty!" - but the effect is for the most part akin to someone trying really hard to be your best mate, only to come off as rather annoying in their insistence. Sanctum wants its cake and eat it; it wants to be a nerve-jarring suspense thriller, an emotive family drama and a funny buddy romp all rolled into one, but it is evidently a juggling act too much for cast and crew. There is admittedly an eerie potency to the more solemn underwater scenes of terror; the scenes of people drowning leave a disturbing aftertaste, and though several characters meet their end this way, the horror of it never really evaporates, perhaps because one of Grierson's few smart directorial touches is to linger and ease in on the suffocating saps rather than cut away constantly to reaction shots. We're not often placed in a comfort zone during these scenes. The characters, however, do their best to evacuate the film's few moments of flair, for with the exception of Richard Roxburgh's steely veteran Frank, they range from serving as minor irritants to igniting ire€™s full extent. While most of the dolts make frequently questionable judgement calls, nobody in this film is quite as spectacularly inane as Rhys Wakefield's Josh, Frank's son and inane-whiny-kid-du-jour, who looks like he belongs on Home and Away which, to my total lack of surprise, Wakefield actually worked on for several years. There are ultimately only so many ways to make big rocks and raging water tense and thrilling, and so it stands that the human element inevitably has to take over, which it does with a peculiarly eager stupidity that puts to shame even those scantily-clad, top-heavy lasses who spend nights lounging alone in secluded houses in horror films. One character refuses to wear a potentially life-saving wetsuit simply because a dead person has already worn it, though at least most of the idiotic characters meet a grisly comeuppance by film's end. There's a solid case made here that you'd have to be absolutely potty to go exploring in the Earth's inner recesses for a fleeting thrill such as this; their madness might in part account for the mind-splattering incredulity of their actions. Still, there's no excusing the tackiness of the entire endeavour, exaggerating the real-life calamity several-fold into a dubious suspense thriller, made more crass by the completely unnecessary introduction of a saboteur in the third-act. The usually reliable Ioan Gruffud turns in an especially mis-pitched, gob-smackingly poor performance as the rich douchebag who sets up the expedition. Indeed, interesting characters, genuine emotion and a tolerable pace are all staples of good filmmaking that Sanctum struggles to achieve; it has solid 3D, one good performance and a few tense scenes, but this aquatic adventure is mostly a bust, and surely the worst thing James Cameron has dared waft his fortune close to. Sanctum is released in the U.K. tomorrow.