Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Brainsbell
The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
Kien Navarro
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
stunt-797-75665
First thing I sense and think that a movie will be bad is faces of actors and things they talk etc. Here I see Justin Bieber and I know what follows... Fake cool-dude useless dialogs and... laugh. When they laugh loudly at the beginning I know a film is disaster. I had to fast forward. No real story here, no arc, no script, no plot, no character development. Wooden dialogues and water. No but thanks. I'm out of here. Jaws are still a role model for water movies. Thanks Steven-like in Allen's case you made your first movies classics. Later on just no.
Python Hyena
Sanctum (2011): Dir: Alister Grierson / Cast: Richard Roxburgh, Rhys Wakefield, Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Parkinson, Daniel Wyllie: Overbearing and increasingly horrid cave diving film that uses the 3D gimmick to exhausted failure. It stars a host of little known actors who are introduced quickly before diving into the largest cave in the world. From there the place floods with a storm being no help to their quest. What is truly unfortunate is how this film claims to be inspired by true events yet it relies on stupid thriller clichés that mount towards one survivor. Director Alister Grierson does his best with the watery visuals and an overlong tunnel of caves but the cast do little more than shout over loud noise and die in accidents that might have been prevented had an common sense been used. Among the cast is Richard Roxburgh as the experienced explorer whom spends much time being right and fending off arguments. Rhys Wakefield plays his son who is an experienced climber. He spends much of the film arguing with his father and having to prove himself. This bickering is not half as entertaining as an episode of Jerry Springer. Ioan Gruffudd plays some outsider who takes video and pictures but how the screenplay handles his fate is total thriller bullshit. This all feels staged and phony from a narrative standpoint. Other characters are about as dull as the folks narrating their activities on fishing shows. Then there is the huge marketing regarding James Cameron as executive producer. It isn't like he directed it. Had he directed it then perhaps it might not have turned out to be the total toilet waste fiasco that it is. Score: 2 / 10
Theo Robertson
SANCTUM was shot in 3-D and produced by James Cameron and yet I had no recollection of seeing any of its trailers or of it hitting the cinema in Britain which leads me to conclude it was something of a flop , It's easy to see how difficult it was to market to a potential audience . As the true life tale of 127 HOURS showed man against the elements type movie shows that this type of adventure probably doesn't lend itself to cinema hence we got a highly dubious and apocryphal tale of someone in the audience fainting during a pivotal scene . There's also the aspect that this type of story would make a subject for a good documentary on The Discovery Channel As it stands SANCTUM is fiction so there's plenty of room for what's known as artistic license . Here the production misses the opportunity to do so . For the first third we're introduced to the characters and what an unlovable bunch they are , almost all exclusively arrogant control freaks and one or two who border on violent sociopath material , just the sort of people you would happily go pot holing with . Especially if something nasty happens down there and you have to entrust your life to them . Sure enough .....I'll say one thing in its favour and that is I didn't have high hope for the film in the first half hour but when the mayhem started it does start taking off in a rather brutal and nihilistic way . You have to overlook one or two things such the cinematic convention that a subterranean cave always has enough light in order for the audience to see what's happening and of course no chance of a rescue party ever being sent out . But despite these flaws which are very common in these type of movies SANCTUM is a tough tale where people have to battle amongst themselves along with nature in order to survive
SnoopyStyle
Master diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) has bought his son Josh (Rhys Wakefield) along to explore the Espiritu Esa'ala cave system with their wealthy benefactor Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd). It's a dangerous underground expedition that turns disastrous when a tropical storm pours rain down into the cave.The characters are completely forgettable. None of them provide anything compelling. There are a couple of interesting actors here but the rest are mostly unknowns. The action is interesting and looks realistic, but it's mostly all wet. I didn't see this in 3D. Maybe that could have saved this movie.
