Sanctum

Directed by Alister Grierson

Starring Richard Roxburgh, Rhys Wakefield, Ioan Gruffudd

Like an old commodore that’s carrying a shiny new caravan, Sanctum comes with something rather striking but up front, it’s the same old vehicle.

Director Alister Grierson’s underwater thriller is just like every other underwater thriller, only difference between this one and say The Poseidon Adventure or Daylight (yep, I went there) is that this one has been filmed in 3D giving the film more of a striking look than its predecessors.

(Very) loosely inspired by co-writer Andrew Wight’s near-death experience leading a diving team into underwater caves a few years back, Sanctum tells of a band of divers – including father-and-son team (Richard Roxburgh and Rhys Wakefield), as well as a cocksure Yankee (Ioan Gruffudd) – who find themselves trapped in some colossal underground caves after a freak storm blocks the entrance.

The 3D here is amazing – it offers depth, beauty and, if the film had embodied a stronger story, would’ve really sucked you into the picture. The cameras, as the marketing materials tell us (over and over again), are the same ones James Cameron used to film Avatar.

Now it’s hard to say whether Cameron’s executive producer credit on the film is something he asked for in return for lending his state of the art equipment, or whether he was taken with writer (very) loosely inspired by a true story yarn of a group of explorers trapped in some watery caves, but one thing’s for certain: Sanctum is no Avatar.

A bit of a cinematic Melissa Tkautz, the Aussie thriller looks sexy but lacks the performance skills to impress. While Roxburgh and Wakefield try their best, they’re let down by, well the script, but also the rest of their cast – namely Brit actor Ioan Gruffudd (Mr Fantastic from the Fantastic Four movies) who, in addition to sporting one of the worst American accents ever to grace a digital print, gives a performance more wooden than the stuff that’s been used to build Camp David.

CLINT MORRIS