February 6, 2011 -- The cave diving adventure movie “Sanctum” is technically dazzling with a lot of amazing underwater, underground scenes filmed in 3D. There are technical climbing sequences, underground parachute jumping, swimming through underwater caves with advanced rebreather equipment, etc. The film overcomes what must have been significant technical challenges in filming all this. The movie is a lot less successful when it comes to the interpersonal relationships between the small group of people trapped in the rapidly-flooding cave. This part of the hackneyed, predictable script is not well written enough to sustain the film.

The dramatic structure of this film is very similar to other adventure and disaster films, such as “Vertical Limit” and “The Poseidon Adventure” (the original, not the remake). People are trapped and must work together to escape, even if they don't all agree on how to escape. In this case, the people are trapped in a huge cave in a remote area of New Guinea. A rain storm is filling the cave with water, the entrance to the gaping mouth of the cave is blocked and those trapped inside must escape from the cave before their food, air and batteries are exhausted. Some of those trapped, like the wealthy entrepreneur bankrolling the expedition, Carl (played by Ioan Gruffudd of “Amaziang Grace”) want to wait for a rescue, along with his girlfriend, Victoria (Alice Parkinson of “Where the Wild Things Are”). But the cave diving expert, Frank (Richard Roxburgh of “Van Helsing”) decides to follow the underwater flow of water to the ocean. The water is rising, he argues, and there can be no rescue from above in this remote area. Everyone will die if they stay put.

A good deal of time is spent on the uneasy relationship between Frank and his son, Josh (Rhys Wakefield of “The Black Balloon”). The idea is that Josh hates his father at the beginning of this adventure, but loves him by the end of it. This awkward dramatic construction isn't necessary to the basic plot of the film, but the rest of the film is so empty it ends up being about the only worthwhile thing you take away from this experience. The filmmakers also seem to go out of their way to make the deaths in the film gruesome. There is not one, but two intentional “mercy” drownings in the film, one or both of which may be, at best, assisted suicides, at worst, convenience killings. There are some other grisly scenes I could have done without too. Then there is a sort of white supremacist death in the film, which reminds me of the immortal words of Sherman “Preacher” Dudley (LL Cool J) from the somewhat similar underwater escape film “Deep Blue Sea.” He said, facing a very similar underwater entrapment, “Brothers never make it out of situations like this! Not ever!” Indeed, the guy with the darkest skin color always seems to die first in these kinds of films, often sacrificing himself to save the white folk. At least in “Deep Blue Sea” the screenwriters had the courage to defy movie conventions. No such luck here.

As a result of the screenplay refusing to abandon any of the usual disaster movie clichés there are no surprises as to the outcome of the film, and no surprises when it comes to who is going to live and who is going to die. This is all quite evident early on in the film. The most likeable characters die early on. In fact, some characters seem to be going out of their way to end their own existence. In the end are characters who are not easy to like, and one who is both repugnant and insane. The characters are mostly one-dimensional as well. Probably the most interesting and multi-faceted character is the tough Aussie cave diver, Frank. He has some depth to him (excuse the pun) unlike all the other characters in the film. The main reason to see this film is for the excellent underwater, underground caving sequences and the nice 3D effects. The handsome young actor Rhys Wakefield does a nice job with his role in this film and could have a big future in movies. This film rates a C.

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