A Splunkin' We Shall Go

Sanctum must have come out at a time when I went to movie theaters regularly, for I recall its theatrical trailer beat by beat. Oddly enough, none of that advertising clued me in to the fact that this James Cameron-produced 'adventure' story was more 'nature wants to kill you with slow pain' and less 'Avatar underground.'

Clearly studios have no idea how to get a gal like me into a cinema.

Quick Plot: Welcome to a giant hole located in scenic New Guinea, where a team of commercial explorers (or something) are cave diving to find a pathway to the ocean. Leading the wetsuit-wearing daredevils is Frank (played by Richard Roxburgh in a far cry from his villainous role in Moulin Rouge), a grizzly Aussie saddled with a fairly ungrateful teenage son Josh (Rhys Wakefield, the lead mask-wearing gentleman in The Purge).

When Josh fails to bring some much needed cargo down to the crew, Mother Nature decides to use it as a teaching moment and bring disaster and death to all. This comes in the form of a cyclone that yields torrential rain on those silly enough to be cave diving, primarily Josh, Frank, the cool yet dumbly named Crazy George, villainous financier Carl, and his beautiful yet dumbly dumb girlfriend Vic.

What follows is a sort of museum adaptation of The Descent, minus the monsters or interesting character dynamics. Despite what its lowly Rotten Tomatoes score might suggest, this isn't necessarily a terrible thing.

Directed by documentarian Alister Grierson, Sanctum was heavily marketed as a sort of adventurous action film from the people who brought you Avatar. This isn't entirely wrong, as it was apparently filmed using the same high-tech 3D camera equipment. James Cameron is listed as an executive producer and while his involvement isn't directly known, this does indeed feel as the kind of film he'd sit back on his golden couch and watch (I like to imagine said golden couch includes a unicorn-skin blanket and popcorn cooked in dodo bird oil).

Much of the grandeur is lost on the small screen, but that doesn't mean we're not still feeling a bit of a clog in our throat as characters negotiate shoddy breathing equipment fathoms below civilization. The script has little to offer in the way of good dialogue or character nuance, but I tend to forgive a movie that substitutes said ingredients for an unlikable character dying a horrible death via chain scalping in a cave.

Yes, I said scalping, and yes, that is essentially what happened. Something oddly ignored by the original American marketing for Sanctum was just how brutal a film it is. We're talking visibly broken bones, the bends, mercy killing (in multiples), and aforementioned scalping. The happiest moment involves bat poop, for goodness sakes!

High Points

Really this is a lesson, but it's one I preach so hard that I'm simply too happy to not highlight the fact that Sanctum teaches us--in a truly visual way--the important of a hair tie when cave diving for your life

Low Points

You know, when lines like "We go down here, even GOD won't know where we are!" are written with such enthusiasm and spoken with a mild amount of it, I suppose one could find fault

Lessons Learned

Panic is a vulture that sits on your shoulder (because why not?)

Trust the cave. I mean, it's trying to kill you in all sorts of horribly painful ways, but still,just trust it

As Frank's costar Nicole Kidman learned in Moulin Rouge, coughing up that tiny touch of blood can only end one way

Listen to the nice man with the cute accent and just put on the dead girl's wet suit already. Chicks, man. Amiright?

Rent/Bury/Buy
Now streaming on Instant Watch, Sanctum isn't a total waste of your time. Sure, the idea of an angry wilderness taking out insignificant humans has been done with more terror (The Descent) and poetry (The Grey) in recent years, but I found myself genuinely involved in the film's action. This isn't particularly good, but those of you who have sat through a 45 minute nature film in IMAX at your local nature museum only to wonder how it would go if the movie incorporated more bloodlust will certainly find some worth.

Live And Die On This Grey

Like just about anyone with an email address, I get a healthy dose of spam messages advertising products that will make my non-existent penis grow multiple inches. After watching Liam Neeson craft a makeshift pair of brass knuckles out of mini-liquor bottles in order to wrestle an entire pack of man-eating wolves in the arctic wilderness, I think I can safely declare non-FDA approved pills and air pump-like apparatuses unnecessary.

Now I’m no expert, but let me give you this piece of advice: if you want your penis to grow, just watch The Grey.

Quick Plot: Our stoic soon-to-be hero Ottway (Neeson) is just finishing up a job with a petroleum company located in the snowy emptiness of northern Alaska. It’s the kind of mission designed for, in his words, “ex-cons, fugitives, and assholes,” aka men unfit for the civil constraints of organized society.

Ottway himself is quiet and clearly deeply scarred. After an unhappy beer, he samples a taste of his rifle, clearly contemplating suicide following the end of his marriage (for reasons we’ll learn later). Instead, he writes an impassioned note and boards the plane home with his all-male team.

As you know from the trailers, the plane goes down in the remote arctic. Ottway emerges immediately as a leader, the only man seemingly fit for the job of telling it like it is to his doomed brethren.

Oh yeah, and wrestling mothah f’cking WOLVES.

26 minutes in, the real battle begins as our quickly shrinking group battles the elements, their tempers, and…you know, mothah f’cking wolves. Throughout the journey, director Joe Carnahan (working with a script by him and short story writer Ian Mackenzie Jeffers) finds a fairly brilliant balance in the wider imagery of the untouched tundra and the small, imperfect lives of these few survivors. Perhaps the film’s greatest strength lies in both its dialogue and occasional lack thereof; when relaxed by a campfire, the men can dabble in crass humor or throw out a personal detail to stay sane, but will equally spend long stretches without saying a word. It works.

There’s also an incredibly sly amount of depth to what goes on in The Grey, and while I may be overthinking some of it, I honestly don’t know that I truly ‘got’ all of its meaning. On one hand, this is a movie about Liam Neeson and a few dudes fighting wolves. On the other, there’s so much—both spoken and unspoken—floating around the snowy air. Over its fairly brief runtime, Jeffers and Carnahan’s script flirts with the existence of God, the definition of an alpha, and what it means to want to live or die. While I’m sure the juggernaut theatrical success will lead to more movies exploring similar territory, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future, The Grey becomes the kind of film analyzed and dissected in film classes and scholarly work.

And not just because all film critics want bigger penises.

High Points

Post-crash, there is an absolutely outstanding scene wherein Ottway surveys a mortally injured passenger and tells him so plainly, “You are going to die.” It sounds cruel of course, but it’s actually deeply moving as Ottway helps bring the unlucky young man to a peaceful end. As his fellow strandees watch with shock, sadness, and respect, we see with them the easy acknowledgement that this is the man—Neeson and Ottway—that we now need to follow. It’s a brilliant way to establish character while lending so much stoic emotion

Man that musical score is good

Low Points

Perhaps I would’ve preferred a little more character stuff BEFORE the crash so as to give us some form of loss. While the last few survivors do emerge as compelling characters, there are a lot of bodies that never seem to mean anything 

Stray Observation

It’s kind of shocking how similar in many ways The Grey is to another great genre film, The Descent. Obviously, the boiled-down premise (people entering no-people land and fighting it out with the natives) but even more specifics:

-Both feature a cast composed primarily of one gender

-Both are set in remote locations

-Both involve characters seeing the specters of their children before death or battle

-Both feature a major character mourning the death of a loved one

-Both have monsters that eat them

-Ottway’s mantra “Live and die on this day” calls to mind Juno’s necklace etched with “Love each day”

-Both kick ass

Lessons Learned

In a way, The Grey almost teaches us nothing. What, don’t fly over the chilly wilderness because wolves will eat you? Don’t do nothing when confronted by a wolf ‘cause it will eat you? Don’t fight a wolf unless you’re Liam Neeson because it’s a wolf and is therefore stronger than you unless you’re Liam Neeson? Seriously The Grey, I love you, but after watching you, I’m fairly certain in my assumption that if I ever end up stranded alone in the arctic circle, the sooner I develop hypoxia and freeze to death, the happier I’ll be 

Lessons Learned For the Film Industry

Hey big name production companies: see how good and successful a movie can be when it’s about people who aren’t necessarily 22 and gorgeous? Just sayin’

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Grey is an incredibly refreshing mainstream hit of a film, one that understands that audiences can be fully satisfied watching real-seeming men in a horrific situation. The photography is gorgeous, the performances, top-notch, and the entire vibe, wonderfully manly. Liam Neeson is fast becoming one of cinema’s fine wines, only a fine Chianti that not only gets better with age, but one that also can kick your ass with an AARP card. The DVD includes a commentary track, and due to its rewatchability, I would easily recommend a blind buy at the right price. Especially if you want a bigger penis.