An elite team of cave divers is enlisted by a Dr. Nicolai (Marcel Iures, "Hart's War") to explore a newly discovered underground, watery cave system in Romania. They soon discover that they are not alone in those spooky depths: weird creatures lurk around almost every corner, waiting to strike. When team leader Jack (Cole Hauser, "Pitch Black") receives some serious wounds, the other individuals are no longer sure that his judgment can be trusted.
"The Cave" is pretty similar to another 2005 monster movie, Neil Marshalls' "The Descent", except that other film has more of an edge with its female-centric cast. "The Cave" is an okay creature feature, with solid atmosphere, excellent location work (in Romania and Mexico), impressive underwater footage, good widescreen photography (by Ross Emery), and decent monster design. The cast is capable, but they're playing routine characters in a very routine script. That said, "The Cave" is watchable as it builds up its body count, and debuting director Bruce Hunt, who'd been second unit and third unit directors on the "Matrix" series, delivers some visceral action sequences. (However, the action is often edited in such a choppy manner that it becomes incoherent, a standard practice in Hollywood features for some time now.) Hunt and company are also wise to adhere to creature feature tradition and just show bits and pieces of the monsters until it's time to reveal them in all their glory.
Co-starring are Morris Chestnut, who'd previously dealt with oversized snakes in "Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid", lovely ladies Lena Headey ('Game of Thrones') and Piper Perabo ("Coyote Ugly"), Eddie Cibrian ('Third Watch'), TV veteran Rick Ravanello, Daniel Dae Kim ('Lost'), and Kieran Darcy-Smith ("Animal Kingdom").
Although hardly inspired, "The Cave" provides adequate, effectively paced entertainment for creature feature devotees.
Five out of 10.
"The Cave" is pretty similar to another 2005 monster movie, Neil Marshalls' "The Descent", except that other film has more of an edge with its female-centric cast. "The Cave" is an okay creature feature, with solid atmosphere, excellent location work (in Romania and Mexico), impressive underwater footage, good widescreen photography (by Ross Emery), and decent monster design. The cast is capable, but they're playing routine characters in a very routine script. That said, "The Cave" is watchable as it builds up its body count, and debuting director Bruce Hunt, who'd been second unit and third unit directors on the "Matrix" series, delivers some visceral action sequences. (However, the action is often edited in such a choppy manner that it becomes incoherent, a standard practice in Hollywood features for some time now.) Hunt and company are also wise to adhere to creature feature tradition and just show bits and pieces of the monsters until it's time to reveal them in all their glory.
Co-starring are Morris Chestnut, who'd previously dealt with oversized snakes in "Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid", lovely ladies Lena Headey ('Game of Thrones') and Piper Perabo ("Coyote Ugly"), Eddie Cibrian ('Third Watch'), TV veteran Rick Ravanello, Daniel Dae Kim ('Lost'), and Kieran Darcy-Smith ("Animal Kingdom").
Although hardly inspired, "The Cave" provides adequate, effectively paced entertainment for creature feature devotees.
Five out of 10.