THE CAVE

By: Rachel Reitsleff
Review Date: Friday, August 26, 2005

THE CAVE's ad campaign "Beneath heaven lies hell, beneath hell lies ..." -- makes it sound potentially more interesting than it actually is. Rather than having any theological/supernatural underpinnings, the movie is a well-produced but almost entirely average creature feature.

There's a prologue that unfortunately hints at more plot than the script by Michael Steinberg & Tegan West turns out to contain a team of explorers in Romania get trapped in a cave-in beneath a church and are attacked by something in the dark. Cut to the present, 30 years later, as a team of scientists and cave divers prepare to explore a previously uncharted underground river in a complex cave system. Another cave-in cuts off their exit right about the time they realize that there are major predators down there and leaving would be an excellent idea.

THE CAVE does benefit from some great production design, nicely creepy creature design from Patrick Tatopoulos and a good cast, especially Lena Headey and Marcel Iures as two of the scientists and Daniel Dae Kim as their photographer who grows understandably impatient with the macho posturing of the cave divers.

Director Bruce Hunt succeeds at creating a great sense of height and depth within the cave system, making the most of his sets, and gets some swell underwater footage, but he's less accomplished at generating even basic monster movie tension. It's often unclear where characters are in relation to each other (even when they're not supposed to be lost) and the creatures are shown in such erratic flashes that we never get to work up much dread about them lunging out at us.

THE CAVE comes off as yet another echo of ALIEN far from the worst of its breed, but without any especially distinguishing spark.