|
 Ahh,
February, like its preceding month, a traditional dumping ground for all
of Hollywood’s flotsam. Even trash decorated with all-star names is
disposed of in this wasteland of studio should’ve-known-betters. ‘Tis
the season of ‘let’s throw this tripe at the audience and see what
sticks.’ It was clearly with this attitude full of shrug that Sanctum
was released. A film so torturous that even chanting producer James
Cameron’s name over and over as is done in this spectacle’s TV spots and
trailers cannot summon a better movie.
The
entire film is based around a huge hole in the ground. Somewhere in New
Guinea, a team of explorers sees some point to digging further into the
earth than anyone has gone before. Why exactly, not really sure, but
off they go; the filthy rich adventurer who really wants to put his name
on the big crater, his girlfriend, just there for giggles, the
tough-as-nails team leader who’s seen all there is to see under the
earth, and his son, shying at the bit at the thought of being made into
his father’s image. If you have read this far and have figured out
what’s going to happen when a bunch of people in a movie get together to
take on Mother Nature and go somewhere they have no business being,
you’ve just saved yourself thirteen bucks (- nineteen if you planned
to opt for the IMAX 3D gimmick).
There
are simply no surprises in this stale, worn-out, alleged action story.
You can see the peril coming from minute one and there’s nothing
original or clever in the script or special effects to make it
enjoyable. The only astonishing aspect of the film is how very
unimpressive the visuals are because we’ve been hammered over the head
with the knowledge that James Cameron did indeed produce this dreck.
Often the scenes inside the caves look like the cast is surrounded by
Styrofoam rocks. There’s a cheapness to the production that is hard to
reconcile with the guy who created Avatar
{2009}, Terminator 2 {1991},
The Abyss {1989} and Aliens {1986}. Still, Cameron didn’t direct this,
so we have Alister Grierson to blame for some genuinely laughable acting
and a complete inability to make anything of the inadvertently hilarious
script. When the audience starts howling at what is meant to be
emotional dialog during a supposedly heartrending scene, you’ve got
problems. One can’t blame moviegoers for thinking the words are trite,
as the entire script seems to be made up of clichés and corny lines.
Back to the effects; besides looking chintzy and mediocre, even in 3D,
one of the big problems is that it’s a cave. That’s it, just a cave. A
big hole in the ground in which you will either fall down to your death,
or in the case of the torrential flooding that turns the cavern into an
underwater sarcophagus, drown in. The only intrigue is the
MacGyver-like methods team leader Frank uses to try to keep his group
alive. They’ll either work or they won’t and that’s not enough to
sustain any real suspense considering all the things wrong with the
film.
The cast can’t do a thing with the impossibly bad script. This
makes me sad for Richard Roxburgh, a fine actor who has never gotten a
proper shot to follow up on the success of his turn as the avaricious
millionaire with a thing for Nicole Kidman in 2001’s Moulin Rouge.
Roxburgh strikes all the right notes as the gruff, burly man who knows
more about fissures in the earth than he does about his son. We never
are bothered to find out exactly why that is, but Roxburgh gives far
more to the character than did the screenwriters. Ioan Gruffudd is owed
big time for the one-dimensional love child of Paul Reiser’s corporate
shill from Aliens and Richard Branson he’s got to portray, complete with
rangy, regional American accent. I normally welcome the stronger female
characters featured in James Cameron-related projects, but egads was
Alice Parkinson shrill and irritating as the millionaire’s girlfriend,
Victoria. She would abruptly vacillate from spunky and can-do (-
having met her wealthy beau on a climb to Mt. Everest, we’re told)
to shrieking and helpless. Then again, I could understand her lack of
confidence that the team’s bickering menfolk could save her hash. Weirdly, it seems like she’s been overdubbed by another voice; all of
Victoria’s dialog seems louder and somehow detached from Parkinson’s
lips. If we take into account that all the characters in Sanctum are
cardboard cutouts, it at least adds a weird meta subtext that gives some
kind of distraction from the nothing happening on screen.
Bad,
just bad. Sanctum is boring, dreary, unoriginal and possessed of a
script so laughably terrible it should never have made it past the
treatment stage. Want to see a guy fight his way out of a big hole in
the ground? Watch last year’s
127 Hours. Want the same kind of action
and underwater frights, but done a million times better? Rent the
original Poseidon Adventure {1972}. There’s no point in tossing
your hard-earned dosh down a well as endless as Sanctum.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
February 4th, 2011
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