Sanctum (2011)

'Sanctum' is an independent Australian film that was funded by Americans, bought by Universal Pictures and of course, executively produced by (who else?) James Cameron. Based on a real-life underwater cave-diving incident experienced by writer/producer Andrew Wight, it's a fairly typical throwback to the high-stakes adventure drama, where inevitably a crew of cave divers, some highly experienced, others fledglings, get blocked in by the water flooding the caves from a freak storm, and so the only way out of the cave is to dive deeper, 'following the river' until it leads out to the ocean. With lots of melodrama and crappy dialogue the film is rather mundane, but it is a sight to see for the underwater camerawork. I am being a little unfair as I'm tired but determined to finish writing this out, so I'll attempt it again. For the first half of the film I couldn't stand the characters - the 17 year-old main character Josh (played by Rhys Wakefield) first appears having run away from the Esa Ala cave system to escape his cold, overbearing 'cave-manic' father Frank (Richard Roxburgh), to meet up with the financier of the expedition Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) who left the expedition partway to bring his girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson) back from the States. The stereotype of the pompous, arrogant, self-entitled American businessman is deeply overplayed and was actually distracting. But anyway, I felt myself not caring about the any of the characters' predicament once they found themselves trapped in the cave. Only when Frank's nature as a caver (caver?) really began to show did the film begin to redeem itself a bit. Be warned, some of the scenes get claustrophobic (especially in 3D) there's some grisly deaths and some language. At one point I ripped off my 3D glasses, put my fingers in my ears and shut my eyes, but otherwise it wasn't too bad. The director, Alister Grierson came off as a really cool guy, and was self-admittedly a little nervous in front of our large class (cute!) and it was apparent he was very passionate and involved in the entire production. It's funny because, since I liked him, I hated the film a little bit less. Sanctum releases in Australia Feb. 3rd and in the U.S. Feb. 4th.