Sanctum 3D Blu-ray offers decent video and great audio in this fan-pleasing Blu-ray release
Master diver Frank McGuire has explored the South Pacific's deep underground Esa-ala Caves for months. But when his exit is cut off in a flash flood during a hurricane, Frank's team - including his 17-year-old son Josh and financier Carl Hurley - are forced to radically alter plans. With dwindling supplies, the crew must navigate an underwater labyrinth to make it out. The unavoidable question: Can they survive?
Just in case Neil Marshall's The Descent didn't convince you that caving was a terrible idea, along comes executive producer James Cameron and hand-picked director Alister Grierson's Sanctum to finish the job. Falling debris, drownings, hypothermia, rock slides, broken air canisters, claustrophobia, budding madness, climbing accidents, tragic deaths and good ol' fashioned murder (pronounced "muuuurder," with one raised eyebrow) are just a few of the dangers brimming beneath the surface of Cameron and Grierson's underground, underwater and, yes, underwhelming quote-unquote thrill ride. In fact, the biggest shock that lies in wait for the uninitiated is that the film isn't very good at all. Stale performances, stocky storytelling, water-logged dialogue, predictable twist after predictable turn, mediocre visual effects and some of the worst green screen work in recent memory... if it weren't for the film's more able-bodied second half, I'd be making comparisons to Skyline right now. Even Grierson's use of Cameron's highly touted 3D cameras and shooting methodology sinks whenever it tries to swim. Dimensionality is artificially boosted at the cost of any real filmic depth, a hyper-digitized sheen undermines the photography, and the film looks about as low-rent as it plays.
"I have control..."
Loosely based on co-writer/producer Andrew Wight's real-life, near-death experience with a deadly cave-in and his subsequent 1989 documentary Nullarbor Dreaming, Sanctum tells the decidedly fictional story of a team of cavers, divers and adventure seekers who suddenly find themselves trapped underground when a fierce storm cuts off their escape route. Even before the storm rolls in though, tragedy strikes. 17-year-old Josh McGuire (Rhys Wakefield) watches helplessly as the no-nonsense professional leading the expedition, his father Frank (Richard Roxburgh), is forced to let a woman drown when an accident disables her breathing apparatus. Of course, Josh blames dear old dad -- mainly because, at some point, sons struggle with the realization that their fathers aren't gods -- and slowly begins to question Frank's motives and pragmatic assessment of the situation. It doesn't help that Frank is a bit of an insensitive brute who blames the dead woman for making poor choices, just before tossing a sliver of guilt in Josh's lap. Not that jet-setting couple Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd) and his girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson) seem to care. With a dangerous storm rolling in, radio interference cutting off communications and team synergy floundering, Victoria chirps "there's nothing can be done for the dead at altitude" and Carl goes diving. The rest is clockwork. Storms rage, waters surge and Josh, Frank, Carl, Victoria and two others -- Frank's good friend George (Daniel Wyllie) and a Papua New Guinea native by the name of Luko (Cramer Cain) -- have to rely on each other to find a way out of their would-be tomb.
Roxburgh is Sanctum's guardian angel. No matter how dim or diluted the film becomes, he keeps a cool head, a veteran's poise and emerges as the most convincing bloke in the bunch. A surprise, considering Roxburgh is no stranger to campy, scene-chewing performances and slippery genre pics (Mission Impossible 2, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Van Helsing and Stealth, just to name a few). If you thought that honor would fall to Gruffudd, you're not alone. (You're also not paying much attention either. Gruffudd has just as many skeletal performances and cheesy flops in his closet.) Donning a ridiculously chipper, wholly unnecessary non-accent, he grins, grimaces and breaks down right on cue, overacting and overextending his chops with every toothy bite. Wakefield is a talented young actor, but Wight and John Garvin's cumbersome screenplay tasks the poor kid with a manic teen boy who bounces from extreme to extreme without much middle ground. He does his best -- and even shines for a solid twenty-minutes when he and Roxburgh are isolated from the rest of the group -- it just isn't enough to counter the weight of the film's glaring flaws. The rest of the actors find a comfy spot between Roxburgh and Gruffudd. Cain is perfectly stoic but woefully underused, Wyllie earns a few much-needed laughs but isn't given much to work with when drama invades the story, and Parkinson hurries along to keep up with Gruffudd, attempting to establish a respectable female presence while screaming, panicking, complaining and spitting chunky F-bombs into Wight and Garvin's napkin as if each one was a gristly bit of meat.
It all unravels with direct-to-video restlessness and uneasiness that eventually -- strike that, inevitably -- pits one character against the next in a tiresome kill-or-be-killed, alpha-male showdown. For the survivors scrambling to escape the depths of the Esa'ala Cave, it's a conflict born from desperation. For the filmmakers though, it's an all-too-conventional conflict born from the fear that audiences just won't care if someone on screen doesn't go a little nutters. At its core, Sanctum is a tale of survival. Wight's near-death experience below the surface of Australia's Nullarbor Plain certainly was. Why Grierson, Wight, Garvin and presumably Cameron chose to take the path most traveled is beyond me. A simpler film -- straight drama, straight thrills -- would have been a far better film. Sanctum still gets a couple of things right. When Grierson isn't preoccupied with setting up a 3D shot, the sense of tightness and claustrophobia becomes palpable. When Roxburgh and Wakefield are quarantined from the rest of the cast, their on-screen relationship pays off. And once Wight and Garvin dispense with all the exposition, garden-variety anxiety and contrived hysteria, the story and characters start to click, even if only momentarily. There's a decent flick buried somewhere inside of Sanctum, there really is. Maybe you'll have more luck digging it up than I did.
Sanctum was shot in native 3D using the James Cameron and Vincent Pace-developed 3D Fusion Camera system; the same system that allowed Avatar to draw viewers into the sprawling world of Pandora. Director Alister Grierson employed a variety of techniques -- split-beam rig shots, stereoscopic sleight-of-hand and side-by-side underwater rigs, just to name a few -- many lifted directly from his commander in chief's playbook. He also had to devise a way to shoot the film's underwater scenes; no small feat considering a single drop of water on a lens could spoil an entire take or require digital manipulation to correct. And, to his credit, Grierson successfully overcame many an obstacle.
Unfortunately, Sanctum's dank, underground caves and underwater caverns aren't exactly ideal 3D-shooting locales, particularly when attempting to submerse viewers in a wholly enveloping 3D world. Cameron's Pandora was largely created with CG, meaning every inch of its forests and seas could be tweaked and polished to three-dimensional perfection. Grierson and DP Jules O'Loughlin's murky, claustrophobic photography is just that: murky and claustrophobic. While somewhat effective in enhancing the narrative, it doesn't lend itself to 3D as readily as, say, a colorful, expansive alien planet might. The result is an image that lacks consistent, lifelike depth. Every now and then, the 3D illusion is convincing, particularly when Grierson's cameras pull back and survey the vast, open surroundings. But when Frank and Josh swim into the dark abysses of the flooded caves or crawl through its terrifyingly tight tunnels, there simply isn't much of a difference between the film's 2D and 3D presentations.
And therein lies the problem. Like its 2D counterpart, Sanctum's 1080p/MPEG-4 MVC-encoded transfer is unwieldy. Black levels are sometimes muted, skintones are occasionally washed out, textures don't exactly pop, noise reduction has been applied to key shots (in post, not for the film's Blu-ray release) and many scenes look as if they've been carved from the same digital plastic as Pandora (albeit to far less engrossing ends). The presentation remains true to its source, but suffers for its devotion. All is not lost, though. The more absorbing 3D sequences -- infrequent as they are -- add a welcome level of dimensionality to the proceedings, eliminating some of the flatness that dominates the 2D image. It's an inherent improvement, of course, and it fails to lift the entire film out of the muck. Still, 3D is the way to go, even if it provides a less-than-thrilling experience. On the technical front, the encode is sound. Sun-bathed colors are warm and striking, primaries are suitably strong, overall detail is decidedly decent, the majority of closeups and midrange shots are satisfying, and delineation is quite revealing (too revealing actually, considering the environment). Moreover, the film's underwater scenes lend the picture legitimacy and look better than those that take place in Grierson's suspiciously well-lit underground gauntlet. Yes, mild banding creeps in and brief bursts of noise mar a few shots, but it's all fairly easy to overlook, especially when crosstalk and ghosting are kept to a reasonable minimum.
Ultimately, Sanctum's 3D presentation doesn't hold a candle to Avatar's top-tier beauty. It's more of a gimmick -- a flawed, problematic Fusion Camera demo reel, really -- than an all-encompassing 3D experience. Just don't be so quick to blame Universal; blame the environments Grierson is exploring, the additional challenges presented by his 3D location shoot, and the director's inability to live up to the high 3D standards set by Cameron.
Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track faces some of the same source-based challenges, albeit to a lesser degree. Sanctum's sound design isn't bad, not by any means, but it isn't very nuanced either. The rear speakers are teeming with crisp, clean, engaging effects, but they rarely connect with other elements in the mix, leaving an empty chasm in the middle of the soundfield around which all else swirls. Gushing water doesn't fill every inch of the room, it roars near the front, pours in from the rear and leaves the carpet in between dry. Individual echoes don't rebound from every angle, they can be traced -- quite easily -- to the exact speaker handling each one. While it isn't distracting per se, audiophiles will take notice. Otherwise, there aren't really any issues of note. Dialogue is intelligible and neatly prioritized in the soundscape, LFE output infuses the film with welcome weight and intensity, and David Hirschfelder's score mimics its surroundings and surges to the forefront whenever called upon. Storms rage, waters churn, chunks of earth smash into the ground and screams pierce the air. Yes, it's all rather loud and a little turbulent. Big, dumb and fun, really. But it's also assertive, eager to please and, frankly, suits the tone of the film just fine.
Sanctum 3D includes a solid selection of supplemental content, albeit on the 2-disc set's second disc. (Disc 1 houses the MVC-encoded 3D presentation of the film, while disc 2 houses the extras and AVC-encoded 2D presentation of the film.) The supplemental package offers a commentary, a lengthy production documentary (in high definition), a batch of deleted scenes and a 1989 Australian documentary about the events that inspired the film. The package isn't terribly special, but it does offer far more than I expected.
Audio Commentary: The name James Cameron excites commentary junkies; his commentaries are among the best available. Unfortunately, Cameron is nowhere to be found, making this just another production overview. Not that I'm complaining. Director Alister Grierson, co-writer/producer Andrew Wight and actor Rhys Wakefield deliver an affable, if not low-key rundown of the film, its script and development, casting and performances, visual effects work and underground world. The ensuing discussion is more than serviceable and will easily hold the attention of any fan of the film.
Sanctum: The Real Story (HD, 47 minutes): A number of recent Universal theatrical releases have arrived on Blu-ray without many special features, so this 47-minute behind-the-scenes documentary comes as a welcome surprise, especially since a filmmakers' commentary is already included. The documentary itself is divided into three sections -- "How It Began," "Making the Movie" and "In the Aftermath" -- each of which provide a sincere, no-frills look at Sanctum, from the true story that inspired the film to its challenging shoot and final cut.
Nullarbor Dreaming (SD, 45 minutes): Also of particular interest is Nullarbor Dreaming, a twenty-two-year old documentary from then-producer Andrew Wight that focuses on a team of cave divers (of which he was a part) whose lives are threatened when a cave-in interrupts their exploration of the Pannikin Plain Cave, an underwater network in Australia. The fact that the true story is radically different from Sanctum's comes as little surprise though.
Deleted Scenes (HD, 9 minutes): A collection of seven deleted scenes, most of which were rightfully trimmed from the feature film.
Sanctum isn't everything it could be, nor does it do James Cameron's 3D techniques justice. It's a passable thriller with a passable cast and a barely passable script, nothing more. The same could be said of Universal's passable 3D Blu-ray release. It too isn't everything it could be. The 3D presentation enhances the experience ever so slightly, but the 3D itself is simply too spotty and inconsistent to leave a lasting impression. Thankfully, its DTS-HD Master Audio track and special features take away some of the sting. As it stands, Sanctum is a wee bit better in 3D, but not by very much.
Blu-ray.com and Universal Studios Home Entertainment are offering ten lucky Blu-ray.com members the opportunity to win a copy of director Alister Grierson and producer James Cameron's Sanctum, starring Rhys Wakefield, Richard Roxburgh, Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Parkinson ...
Universal Studios Home Entertainment has announced Sanctum for Blu-ray release
on June 7, in 2D Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray versions. This action adventure film, executive
produced by James Cameron and conceived and shot in 3D, follows a team of cave divers
on ...
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