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.

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.

People are trapped in a cave.A disaster movie made in this century that is not totally swamped with CGI. Could it be? Yes...that makes this film a bit different and very welcome.This all seems rather human and well done. I was fine with all the actors involved. There were times when I was reminded of some 1970s disaster movie I saw decades ago.Filmed on a studio set rather than a real cave...but it fooled me. Perhaps this film will get the younger crowd running to DVDs stores wanting to see how the disaster movie genre first started in the 1970s. And that can only be a good thing.PS Most of the cast are in fact Australian

SANCTUM is quite a predictable film, a would-be disaster outing about a group of cavers who have to escape from a flooding cave system when their expedition is beset by disaster. Produced by James Cameron and made in 3D, this Aussie outing is by-the-numbers for the most part, although it does have a handful of good suspense and action scenes which make it worth a watch.The movie is not without its problems, one of which is the calibre of the cast. Alister Grierson is pretty good at directing the action and death sequences that inevitably arise, when it comes to the dialogue scenes and more human moments then it's a different story. The majority of the cast here give absolutely horrible performances, which is particularly surprising given some of the talent involved.The most notable culprit is Ioan Gruffudd, who was fine back in the day in the HORNBLOWER television series, but whose B-movie acting here is absolutely diabolical. It's a pitiful, pantomime performance and the worst I've ever seen from him. The female cast members are also notably wooden, and the only decent turn comes from the underrated Richard Roxburgh, whose strong central character is pretty much the only reason to stick with this.