The good:
- Some powerful 3D illusions! I saw Sanctum on a 50' HD screen to confirm a theory: The ability of the theater to properly display this technology is just as important as what 3D movie one sees
- Gorgeous visuals whether you see it in 3D or not, especially in the first half.
- Richard Roxburgh is much more capable than I would have guessed as the gruff hero
- Unforgivingly brutal at times. This isn't a gratuitious ultraviolence, but this movie certainly deserves its R rating.

The bad:
- At some point, even a PADI-certified diver like me found the whole enterprise to be repetitive. One really sees how smart Neil Marshall was in the structure of his masterpiece The Descent.
- Mercy drowning is a fucking oxymoron if there ever was one.
- The dialogue is very James Cameron.
- Ioan Gufford is a vacuum of a person, as always.
- The first minute and the last twenty.
Eventually things take a turn for the frustrating as the movie steadily runs out of gas. The inevitable third act betrayal is completely pointless, an instance of a character being seized by the elder gods of plot machinations. The ending is so deflating that it almost drowns the rest of the movie.


And I LOVE survival movies like this, whether it's disaster, creature-feature, or recent classics like 127 Hours and The Way Back. Maybe its unfair to compare Sanctum to those films, being that they are directed by two of the best living directors. PUN TIME! While Sanctum is shallow and enjoyable, it eventually sinks under its own weight.

I've heard the first act is kind of hilarious with its overbearing foreshadowing. Lots of on-the-nose "What could go wrong, honestly?!" type dialogue?

A lot of the dialogue is too on-the-nose, or just ill-advised in general. And the way the storm sneaks up on people with no warning is outrageous as the rogue wave in The Poseidon Adventure. But I liked the first act for the very impressive 3D and accompanying panoramas.

Caught this today and while it was decent, it's pretty much completely generic.

Stock characters, dialogue laced with irony, the token turning on each other and of course the whittling down of survivors.

It is also shockingly, maybe needlessly, gory and sadistic but the 3D is done quite well and the visuals are gorgeous.

Characters are for the most part believable and the son-father combo is strong. I don't believe a second that weak acting was a fault of any except Carl's girlfriend who had a thoroughly stupid character to play anyway.

B-

The dialogue is definitely not this movie's strong point. But the underwater scenes are really well-filmed and the movie is entertaining enough.

6/10 (B-)

Sanctum has some nice water scenes but the story is so repetitive, boring, and filled with horrific acting. There was so much bickering with the son that when they end up reconciling it really doesn't matter anymore. Some deaths are incredibly stupid and the dialogue that follows just reeks of bad James Cameron despite him not directing. There should of been more thrills and excitement here but there wasn't. *

Bad acting from everyone but Richard Roxburgh. The son is SO self-righteous and annoying. The underwater scenes are indeed nicely filmed, though, and very intense. So it's not a -total- loss.

C, I guess