Writers: John Garvin, Andrew Wight
Stars: Richard Roxburgh, Rhys Wakefield, Ioan Gruffadd, Alice Parkinson, Dan Wyllie
This movie sucks. It's so full of stereotypes that you forget that this is a film about survival. To tell you the truth, I bought the DVD under a misapprehension, thinking it was a horror movie that I'd heard many good things about. When I found out that this was a film about survival that stars Rhys Wakefield, I was really excited to find out whether it would be good. From the moment I started watching the film, I knew I'd regret wasting my money on this terrible film.
The story is as follows. A team of underwater cave divers go on an extremely dangerous expedition to the largest and least accessible cave system on Earth. When a freak storm forces them deep into the caverns, they must fight raging water, rough terrain and increasing panic as they search for an unknown excape route to the sea. All of the characters are one dimensional, stereotypical and have uninteresting stories and personalities, which is why I won't explain what they have to do with the film.
I will start off by saying that although there was some bad CGI in parts, the cinematography in general was beautiful and haunting. However, I never quite felt like I was watching people in a cave. It felt like I was watching actors playing people in a cave, which sucked me write out of the movie. Ioan Gruffadd played a loudmouth American that is spearheading the expedition, and although I love him as an actor, he was terrible at putting on the accent. It was so over the top and out of place that it further put me off the film.
The cast was predominantly Australian, which I thought would be a good change to the usual thriller movies. It wasn't. It was just as Hollywood and predictable as most thrillers, providing nothing unique other than the setting.
All of the characters were annoying and unrealistic, which made me feel nothing for them when they died. I couldn't feel the panic coming from them, or connect to their personal stories (which were also really bad). The worst thing about Sanctum is the dialogue. There were so many stereotypes in this movie that even Sacha Baron Cohen's films Bruno and Borat couldn't beat them.
With laughable dialogue such as "You'll fizz up like a dropped beer can," you won't find many movies that would beat Sanctum when it comes to cliche' lines and bad acting. This movie is to be avoided at all cost.
