The Cave [DVD]

Right - where to start?

1. Poor acting and script

2. Rip off from much better films

3. Poor editting and camera work (how many times does that camera swing round and is it my eyes or are the 'action' scences cut to pieces?

This film has got to one of the worst I've seen recently. Poor shot, acted and scripted, it stinks. The story is, I'll give it this, pretty original (to a certain extent) but as previous reviewers have pointed out, accuracy has been sacrificed for the story - a poor swap in my opinion.

Predictable with a cheesy ending.

Want a scary film about caves - go watch "Descent".

As there is no "zero" stars rating it gets one from me - am now off to sell my watched once copy!

The Cave has all the makings of a typical 'moderately' budgeted movie; a non-star cast (of which they are made up of many backgrounds), poor use of CGI, and predictable plot and script. That's just about it!

Like any other film of this calibre, the direction is totally un-organised and is un-evenly balanced. Not enough emphasis is put on the characters relationships/personalities, and the goal to which the story is targeted is never apparent at the start! All you get a brief summary of who's who, where they are going, and a poor excuse of why. In this, some Chinese fella wants to film a group of young people (all nutured in the beauty of Science/Geology, combined with physical looks of course...) in a mysterious cave underwater that is believed to have held many people in the past, and hold many mysteries, blah blah blah.... Cut long story short, they all get trapped in this convenient labyrinth and must discover a way out. Combine this with the knowledge that an un-identified creature is after them and it looks like they're the last in the food chain.

Out of the many that actually go (to which their is roughly 8/9) only 3 survive of course; token black guy, beautiful women, and our muscular protagonist who has no knowledge what-so-ever of the mission that's planned; his role merely to wear a tight wet-suit and act macho.

Once I had discovered this was a duff film and was considering watching the candle flicker, I realised some of the annoying characters were slowly getting killed one by one. Great! Normally such films offer humorous death scenes to which make you laugh out loud. Unfortunately, the film even film even fails to do that!

The predator, per-sae, that our group of mindless chickens are running away from appears to be a cross between a large bat and many features from the 'Alien', from the 'Alien' movies, such as the long head and narrow teeth. Not exactly a winning combination... and neither is it's menacing groan that sounds like my tummy after Christmas dinner, ready to explode.

And so, with the quest continuing to find an escape route, they finally manage to kill off these strange creatures with ease (slitting their throats?? Come on! Why didn't they just do that in the first place?) and swim up to the water surface which is literally though the first tunnel they find after the whole place collapses in. Hmm...

The lack of character development means our two protagonists; Tyler (oh how American-hunk sounding!) and Cathy (token-annoying English woman with annoying stage-school accent, though beautiful admittedly!) sit outside a Cafe and kiss. Not really on the cards after what you've just witnessed.

This is a particularly boring and drawn out movie that boasts little in the way of excitement of entertainment. Unless you're wiling to pay to watch Cathy looking sexy in her wetsuit, or to witness some odd Bat-Alien type creature devour the odd helpless person, you may as well just watch a wall that's recently had paint splashed over it eventually dry.

I don't see why so many seem to hate this film - it is a good action film, excellent monsters, and really good ending. Sure the acting will never win any Oscars, but who cares - they just run around in caves dodging monsters...I thought they were really good at running around, getting eaten, and blowing things up. Excellent brainless fun - get a few beers in, popcorn, turn the lights out, and enjoy!