The Thousands

Despite the imprimatur of noted deep-sea diving nutcase James Cameron – who exec-produced and provided his proprietary 3D camera system – Sanctum is a conventional disaster thriller. Still, it’s nice to see Australian cinema invading international blockbuster territory, and the 3D is spectacular. Sometimes majestic, sometimes claustrophobic, it puts you right with the trapped cave divers battling floods, equipment failure and each other to escape a PNG chasm.

Sanctum‘s abysmal script (sorry!) and hammy ockerisms are often distracting; prepare to guffaw when The Chaser‘s Andrew Hansen appears as Random Plot Exposition Guy. Only Rhys Wakefield and Dan Wyllie tap genuine emotions; Ioan Gruffudd and Alice Parkinson display breathtakingly diabolical American accents as billionaire expedition financier Carl and his girlfriend Victoria. Meanwhile, cantankerous dive leader Frank (Richard Roxburgh) loves to recite the bits of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan that are about caves.

Still, Sanctum is enjoyable purely on a genre level. Crazy risk-takers first endanger life then save it! Reluctant characters discover fortitude! Father-son relationships are forged in adversity! As characters die horribly, one by one, Frank assures his horrified companions, “He’d only hold us back!” or “It was her choice!” If you’re craving popcorn silliness, make this your choice.