It is a performances centric movie

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I think the worst part of the film is the poor writing, combined with no character development. When things started going south, I barely cared. It was well done. But, it was quite predictable, had little sense of awe and wonder, and fell shot on so many levels. The whole harsh father, and browbeaten son routine has been done hundreds of times, and usually alot better than it was done here. I really had a sense that I lost two hours of my life with this movie. And there was little in the way of a payoff. If these guys were so experienced, and so well funded, how on earth did they find themselves in that situation with a cyclone on the way? What were they thinking? Why take those kinds of risks? I understand the concept of thrill seeking. But within reason, and within a reasonable safety margin. Right? Dumb. Really dumb. The reinvention of the term dumb and dumber.

This movie gets a lot of negative reviews, because i think people expect a wrong kind of movie. Yes the emotional shots linger a bit too long here and some characters you just want to smack in the face for just being a one-dimensional dick but that are honestly the only flaws i can find. Some movies use certain devices to sell a story, like more focus on the action instead of character build up, some use more emotion and less suspensefull scenes, some use it all, and those are mostly classified as a masterpiece. But not every movie has every device covered, and that's ok. This one is propelled by the intense feel of claustophobia, tension, excitement and suspense. Sure it lacks on the other departments a bit but that is not what holds this movie together. What it's not good at, meh, it wasn;t meant to be it;s selling point anyway. But what ths movie does best - it does so with grace, and that is keeping you to the edge of your seat! Highly reccomend people who suffer from claustrophobia or fear of drowning to skip this movie, because every scene only feeds that anxiety. If you don't have these fears yet, believe me, you will get a good taste of it.

"Sanctum" is a fearful adventure tale executed in very convoluted fashion. There are some levels of intensity and excitement and the ending has some heftiness to it, but all of it is plagued by the misused effects of 3-D. The film is being stapled as a "James Cameron Production", but since Cameron doesn't have a lot of creative control we know that fewer flaws would've occurred in this film if Cameron was in the director's chair and the 3-D would've been put to better use.Based off off actual events, a group of explorers embark on a journey to the Esa-ala caverns of Papua New Guinea in which claims to be the largest cave system on the planet. Their mission is to rediscover the once seen route and to reach a "base camp" beneath the lower depths for the purpose of how surface water could drain into the caverns finding its way into the sea.There's really no necessity in exploring these caves, but the team leader Frank (Richard Roxbergh) explains to his son Josh (played by Rhys Wakefield) that this cave is the key to living and that anything that is not submerged is meaningless and that human eyes contact has never been opened up to a world like this one.After the first few minutes of utter nonsense, the team goes right into the cave system and that trouble is only an eyelash away. They go through some dangerous climbing and life-threatening dives, making me wonder what was going on, where are they and why are they going to such great lengths to explore this cave system?When it comes to overwhelming film continuity, "Sanctum" takes the cake. Never once does the film pinpoint the locality of the cave let alone a clear picture of what the cave space looks like. At least in Cameron's "Titanic", the animated features give us a better indicator of how the might ship sank. At least we knew the events that lead during the scary final hours. Here we do see an animated sequence of partial areas of the cave, but everything is only seen briefly and never gives us any time to indulge in the bigger picture leaving us with empty knowledge of the cavern itself."Sanctum" didn't need to be shot in 3-D. The spaces were extremely claustrophobic, the lighting was quite low and the atmosphere looks dimmer than it should have been. The only lighting were get are from battery dependent headlamps and the characters seem to in a world of darkness so why wear the glasses? The illusion of depth is the primary purpose of when you use 3-D. For that to be done, we must prevent the forth wall like we're touching it. Like in "Jaws 3-D", when the shark was on the prowl, the body just touches the screen and the 3-D effect was null and void. The eel attack was quite creepy.Cinematographer Jules O'Loughlin's 3-D effects touches the screen continuously, The framing consists of indistinct blocks of stones and such. And then I ask myself, why are the closer objects less distinct? Sure there are plenty of closeups but they wear out their welcome pretty fast when shown in 3-D.In the editing, we get very little in terms of how the actions of one character coincides with the other. There's a part where one of the characters gets in trouble underwater and we get nothing to explain what happened and why other than to distract us and confuse us. Three team members follow what's happening via computer monitor. And all we get are their reactions and nothing more. But where do they their information from? The closing scenes determines in ruthless fashion of who survives in this journey and who's left to die which includes Frank and Josh which is long but it's effective in detail and not necessarily for the sake of 3-D. I hope when people see "Sanctum" they don't assume it's a James Cameron 3-D dependable film. In fact "Sanctum" might deter the reputation of Cameron and 3-D itself

I got this on Bluray as somewhat naively I got fooled by the big "James Cameron" marketing and was expecting some interesting underwater camera work ala The Abyss.The director, Alister Grierson, shows good technical ability but no creative inspiration. So we don't feel like we're following the action, the camera work doesn't invite the sense of claustrophobia nor do we get (bar a couple of short examples) much in the way of epic scenery.Still, the camera work and scenery are solid enough to tell us an effective dramatic tale of caught-in-caves. Problem is we have to endure cheesy clichéd dialogue delivered by an amateurish cast, plus we're saddled with a boring father-son emotional dynamic which develops as predictably as the doom of those first few red-shirts.The realistic cave-diving techniques on-show and a couple of nice scenes save this from being awful, but the cast and screenplay do pull this down into below-average.Only really recommended for cavers and divers who are interested in seeing their discipline on-screen.