Feb

3

SANCTUM

Executive Producer: James Cameron
Director: Alister Grierson

James Cameron produced several of the century's top earners after his blockbuster ALIENS (1986) and its sequels. He made TITANIC (1997), then, AVATAR (2009), both of whose earnings were, well, titanic.

He's done icky creatures in outer space, massive ship wreckage and breakage, then 10-foot-tall blue tree-people. He did a terrific documentary on the Titanic in 2005. What could harness his delight but an underwater spelunking cartographic expedition?

SANCTUM, which brought our hands to our eyes more than once during the excursion in uncharted glub-glub territory, is an underwater cave-diving team in Papua New Guinea. As this action-adventure would have it, you've seen two dozen of these hairy 120-minute terrors, though never this total immersion (as it were) in depths heretofore confined to sightless sea creatures. The attractive group, which brings to mind one of Agatha Christie's best loved works (And then There Were None), experiences heart-threatening crises during an expedition to the unexplored and 'least accessible cave system in the world.' Why? Because. . .it's never been done.

We were a 'perfect' audience: We are an adopted member of the Azmat tribe in Papua New Guinea, so had actually been where the establishing-shot land sequences occurred. Principal photography, underwater, we learn from the credits, was Australia, but that does not subtract from the excruciating testosteronic nature of this film. The cast are, every one, unknown Aussie actors, saving Cameron & co. millions on what clearly was an exhaustingly expensive project to film. Though they are to us unknown, the on-camera guys and women were as rugged and fit as anything you've seen since CONAN.

In addition to being scared IQ-less of water, a result of drowning when we were a preteen, we were treated to long minutes of another secret fear: Getting stuck in tiny slit apertures while spelunking. Except they undergo this in blackness, underwater, mind. While shlepping enormous backpacks of whatnot—food (though no one ate once except some Gorp by a really dumb and selfish guy), supplies, ropes, cameras, extra lights, electronic gear we don't pretend to recognize. So you have machismo to the ultimate max: Rapelling (our favorite) thousands of feet. Climbing down sheer rock-faces. Diving into the unknown. Cave-finning against expiring oxygen tanks. Underwater. Spelunking in a maze that has never been explored. All underwater.

Cyclones above; doubting Thomases, below. Girlfriends who don't know squat about diving or exploring. Father-son squabbles. Smoldering resentments. Expendable cast members. Agita and competition between gristle-and-bone mountains of one sort or another. Manliness. Muscles. Extraordinary bravery, pitched against ineradicable risks and stubborn refusals to face reality. Real leadership shining through the endless unknowns, even with the latest gadgetry.

Universal doesn't hand out press notes, so one can only guess at the millions this set the moguls back. The camera work is outstanding, even if the script does not give SOCIAL CONTRACT or its sequel scribes anything to fret about next year. And as much running around the world as we have done, most people will never, ever be able to rival the feats of stamina and gymnastics all hands bring to this enterprise. Quite the escape for date night.

It's 'way better than leapin' jumpin' AVATAR–and blessedly apolitical. As the women outside stood gabbing excitedly with their escorts, the word that came popping to mind and ear repeatedly was intense. We'd go with that: SANCTUM is about as intense an entertainment experience as you're likely to pay for on a Saturday evening.


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