Cave Rescue

We need to separate out the amazing story that was the rescue of the football team, from this awful movie.

There are many lessons to be learned from this dreadful project - first to market is not always a good thing. Getting real life participants to recreate their parts often doesn't work - and ends up in repeated scenes where they just grunt. Employing low cost actors (perhaps to make them look like real people) doesn't work well either. Focussing on little bits of story that haven't had much coverage (water pumps man) just gets tedious. Repeated scenes of people cheering and congratulating each other gets really tedious. Repeated shots of murky diving gets exceedingly tedious.

Wait for a better movie version of this story, save your time and money, and avoid this film.

Retelling one of the most extraordinary real-life rescues, Cave Rescue aims to honor bravery and hope, yet its execution never fully matches the magnitude of the actual event.

The film dramatizes the 2018 Thai cave rescue, where twelve young soccer players and their coach were trapped deep underground by rising floodwaters. With international divers, local volunteers, and Thai authorities working tirelessly, the story remains one of global unity and human perseverance. On paper, this narrative is filled with natural tension and emotional resonance.

While the film captures the factual outline of events, its presentation often feels uneven. The use of non-professional actors and a restrained production budget creates a sense of authenticity, but also results in performances that lack dramatic intensity. The pacing struggles between documentary-style realism and dramatized storytelling, preventing it from achieving either gripping suspense or emotional depth. Cinematography within the caves creates a claustrophobic atmosphere, yet the visual execution does not consistently convey the urgency inherent in the actual story.

The strength of Cave Rescue lies in its respectful tone. It avoids sensationalism and highlights the collaborative spirit of the rescue operation. However, compared to other dramatizations and documentaries covering the same event, it lacks the polish and narrative cohesion to leave a lasting impression.

Rating: 5/10 - A respectful but underwhelming dramatization that recounts an incredible true story without fully capturing its emotional or cinematic potential.

While the real life story of the Thai boys football teams rescue was wonderful, this film was an extremely poor production. The real people playing themselves is comical at times, through no real fault of their own. Afterall they arent actors. Its very poorly laid out and extremely slow.

Twelve young boys and their coach being trapped in a cave - it was world news for about 3 weeks. When the movie comes you expect to get something more out of it than an overview of the news headlines and a presentation of facts you already know. I would have expect some more insight of what the impact was on the team, but the boys themselves get no more than 10 minutes or so screening time. What is it like to find out that you are trapped in a cave. How do you deal with the darkness, dampness, lack of food, fresh water and sanitary facilities? How do you cope with being cut off from the outside world not knowing what efforts are being made there and how long it will take before someone finds you? This film makes you none the wiser. Instead the focus is on some guy arranging pumps, and else I could hardly make out a story line. On top of this the cinematography is exhausting. Hand held camera most of the time in very close up producing images on the big screen that are constantly moving are no pleasure to watch. This film adds nothing to anything and is a waste of time. My four stars are on the generous side.

I am gracious of the director putting the case into the movie. I know it from news, but never know the details. It is like seeing a very long news report. Since the incident is happened not for long, I am very interested to see the details.

The movie is full of negative comments. Yes, all the comments are true. But i like to point out is that timing is very important. If a very good movie is put on the screen ten years later I would lose my interest no matter what.

For the present movie I am simply urged to finish it, despite its technical drawbacks. And it is so happy to know some actors is the actual person in the incident.

In all, the movie is ok to me, and I hope more of this movie, like one on COVID 19, could be put on big screen timely.