MOVIE REVIEWS: SANCTUM

Universal is clearly flinging out the James Cameron-produced Sanctum over Super Bowl weekend in the realization that it’s not likely to perform much better on a weekend when people actually go to the movies. The movie, filmed overseas (Australia) and underseas in 3D, is drowning in reproving reviews. “A documentary on the formation of stalagmites would have been more compelling,” grouses Claudia Puig in USA Today. While Avatar‘s Cameron is the executive producer, it shows little of his talent, particularly for making ordinary scenes compelling in 3D, the critics indicate. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, in fact, comments that “the movie is a case study in how not to use 3D. … Here is a movie that can only harm the reputations of Cameron and 3D itself.” Virtually every critic complains about the film’s clunky dialogue, which Kyle Smith of the New York Post says makes “the writers sound like stock pitchmen hawking shares in Macho Men, Inc.” And, although the movie may be shot in 3D, notes Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News, “The acting … is stuck in one dimension.”