SANCTUM

Executive producer James Cameron’s SANCTUM is all wet

Executive producer James Cameron’s mosh-up of TITANIC, AVATAR, ALIENS, and THE ABYSS is, well, abysmal. Inspired by a real-life 1988 expedition documented by SANCTUM writer and producer Andrew Wight in NULLARBOR DREAMING, this underwater spelunking adventure is classic Cameron: a combination of stunning imagery with absurd dialogue and overmanipulated melodrama. Richard Roxburgh stars as Frank McGuire, a tough-as-nails cave diver who has sacrificed his personal life for the opportunity to boldly go where no one has gone before. His latest challenge is a monster cave in Papua, New Guinea, in a dive sponsored by millionaire adventurer Carl Hurley, ridiculously played by Ioan Gruffudd, who awfully delivers the awful dialogue he is given. Carl has brought along his girlfriend, Victoria (Alice Parkinson), while Frank is joined by the seventeen-year-old son he doesn’t know very well, Josh (Rhys Wakefield). After a massive tornado hits them harder and faster than expected, the team is trapped in the seemingly limitless cave system, desperately trying to find a way out before they all drown. The 3-D effects are extremely cool in the beginning, if over the top, but they soon fade into the background as clichéd scene after clichéd scene chokes the story. It quickly devolves into a POSEIDON ADVENTURE wannabe, but with stale characters and little emotional involvement as well as more than its share of unintentional laughs. Still, there are some breathtakingly gorgeous shots, but SANCTUM is, ultimately, all wet.