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Sorry, I thought it was terrible.

I just can't seem to get on the "it's only a movie" or the "had a great time" bandwagon here. What I saw was a movie made by someone who obviously did not care about my maintaining my suspension of disbelief.

If I thought I would get it, I would ask Cameron for my money back.

I liked it! After all, its just a movie and I had a great time.

Cavemud wrote::big grin: I liked it! After all, its just a movie and I had a great time.

Nicely done.

I went to see it today, overall I thought it was good entertainment. While everyone is nit picking I have to throw in my 2 cents. What bothers me is the ascending equipment, who here has frogged 2km (1.24 miles). I am not the most efficient caver out there with a frog system but come on, they have a pretty much unlimited budget but they can't get a ropewalker? Then theres the descent, first I have never seen a rack feed that quick on all 5 bars, second whats with the 5 bar rack with aluminum bars. I have admittedly never descended anywhere close to that distance but it seems stainless steel would definitely be the ideal material.

David Grimes wrote:I went to see it today, overall I thought it was good entertainment. While everyone is nit picking I have to throw in my 2 cents. What bothers me is the ascending equipment, who here has frogged 2km (1.24 miles). I am not the most efficient caver out there with a frog system but come on, they have a pretty much unlimited budget but they can't get a ropewalker? Then theres the descent, first I have never seen a rack feed that quick on all 5 bars, second whats with the 5 bar rack with aluminum bars. I have admittedly never descended anywhere close to that distance but it seems stainless steel would definitely be the ideal material.

Ropewalkers are mainly TAG and US cave equipment. It's not used so much elsewhere. In Mexico at lot of people don't use them because there are so many pits, and there are lot of pits that are so many that are not nice vertical pits, but oftentimes you have to mix traverses and overhangs and all sorts of things where it's not convenient to use a ropewalker. Though I can't say I stopped to take notice, but I don't think I've ever seen a Brit not use a ropewalker.

David Grimes wrote:What bothers me is the ascending equipment, who here has frogged 2km (1.24 miles).

A ropewalker would be a terrible choice for that type of cave, or any expedition caving really. You could use it for the big entrance drop, but thats about it. As Barbara pointed out there are numerous obstacles encountered in a cave like that and a ropewalker would make things worse than better.


What bothers me the most about the whole thing, is why didnt they just stay put? The son(forgot name) revealed later in the movie that they had enough food for days that had been drug through all the sumps ands stuff to the lower part of the cave. Yes there is the chance the water could have backed up all the way to that rock area (Flow Stone Falls on the "map") which looked to be a good bit above the sump IIRC. But I guess it would have made a good movie to show them hanging out for a few days on dry ground. And yes there was a rock in the way, not just water. But I would guess an expedition trip would have some sort of explosives and/or rigging gear to move a rock. Just my two cents.

David Grimes wrote:What bothers me is the ascending equipment, who here has frogged 2km (1.24 miles). Then theres the descent, first I have never seen a rack feed that quick on all 5 bars, second whats with the 5 bar rack with aluminum bars. I have admittedly never descended anywhere close to that distance but it seems stainless steel would definitely be the ideal material.

If you went to Krubera Cave (-2,191m) I doubt you'd see much of anything besides frog and modified-frog systems. You also probably wouldn't see racks, and the friction surfaces of many of the descenders would be made of aluminum!

Saw the film last night. Glad we went. It was well-shot, which made the cave visuals extremely satisfying. 3-D is very effective.

As many others have noted, including the usual film critics, the cast is mediocre overall, and downright poor in some cases. I really only liked the main protagonist in terms of acting and character development. The dialogue is really lame at times. The plot is pretty straight line, and very reminiscent of Vertical Limits. We noticed the occasional technical cave gear anomalies, like way too many brake bars for the initial rappel, but mostly forgave any of that. It really wasn't that bad, and actually works well for a general public audience.

All that water - it felt cold and creepy - and the deaths, leaving some recurring images today, so credit to the cinematographers and director. However, the level of acting definitely detracted a lot. On-line survey of reviewers rate the film between 43 and 56 on a scale of 100. I think that's fair, and, as a caver, I definitely think it's worth seeing.

Amazingracer wrote:It says it was shot on location in Gold Coast, Australia.

The infamous helicopter shot looks similar to Golondrinas (but is not). However several shots at the bottom of that hole look like the inside of Golondrinas.

What im interested to know if there are any big open air pits like that actually in Australia.

I dont know if anyone a has replied to this but I live in Canberra (Australian capital) and i am personally unaware of big open pits like this anywhere in Australia. The movie is based in PNG and i have no idea if there are big pits like that.

Just saw Sanctum today. Maybe it's not perfect, but damn, I really liked it. A wild ride for sure. The 3D cave diving visuals were quite impressive.

And I could be wrong but I think my watch is in the movie. The part where they use the watch light as a last resort. It is rather bright, and lights from the 12 and 6 position. I've never had to use it to light a cave, but it is handy for walking across a dark room. Action shot-





Anyway, I'd like to go see it again. You just don't get to see stuff like that on the big screen everyday.

The Cave, The Cavern, and Descent all had the same plot. The entrance collapses, so the party of cavers has to find a way out the bottom thru virgin pasage to find another entrance. In Sanctum the entrance flooding does the same thing. Journey to the Center of the Earth and Shibumi have the same plot device. Can't anyone think up a different plot?

Bob Thrun wrote:The Cave, The Cavern, and Descent all had the same plot. The entrance collapses, so the party of cavers has to find a way out the bottom thru virgin pasage to find another entrance. In Sanctum the entrance flooding does the same thing. Journey to the Center of the Earth and Shibumi have the same plot device. Can't anyone think up a different plot?

Didn't you know? There are only 7 movie plots. Every movie is a variation on those 7 basic movies.

Some other random thoughts on the movie-

Lots of Petzl Duos in this one. Waterproof down to 5 meters... mine has been splashed plenty and is still going strong, but that doesn't sound like the perfect diving helmet. Also, the cavers in the movie seemed to favor the halogen bulb, which in my opinion is kind of worthless in most situations. And it really drains the batteries compared to the LED array. Yep, just checked- Halogen is 4 hours of light, you get 63 hours with the LEDs set to low.

I was also kind of surprised that there was no scene showing them taking stock of all their batteries and food. That's the first thing I would do. Maybe not exciting enough for a movie though.

And now I know what a BFR is. :)

Also, wear the dead girl's wetsuit. They don't mention the water temp, but I'm surprised they didn't push the issue harder. But no wetsuit = more drama.

edit- just read back through everything and the Petzl thing was already covered. Oops.

The scene with the 3D cave mapping software, where they do a virtual fly-through of the cave, was awesome.

JR-Orion wrote:Also, wear the dead girl's wetsuit. They don't mention the water temp, but I'm surprised they didn't push the issue harder. But no wetsuit = more drama.

Yeah. My wife's quote after the movie: "Just for the record, I would wear the dead girl's wetsuit." What a gal!

I thought it was pretty good too.. better than I expected. I thought the dialog, especially at the beginning, was hideous though. It seemed to get better as the movie progressed though.

I jumped in my seat in a couple of places even, which rarely happens to me in scary movies.

I was cringing throughout the movie, every time I would see their bare hands. Not a glove to be found.
Of course, I've been reminded that cave divers often don't wear gloves, but I bet they do when they are in a dry cave.