Female Action Descents Into Malehood

Rating: 6/10 (22 January 2019)

5 August 2006. Warning: Spoilers. A nice idea, but one that descends into something indistinguishable from other horror/action/thrillers. What begins uneven with a oddly, unnatural hospital scene where bystanders seemingly ignore this poor woman in agony, continues with a new idea of having sex somewhat strong female personalities with some abilities at typical male sports - rafting and cave exploration, and introduce a somewhat different dark, cavernous action thriller, with somewhat monster-type things thrown in. We have the typical stereotypical characters - the young brash funky kid, the macho-adventure seeker, the more humble hurt female, and the rest of the women bound for possible slaughter. There is an eerie resemblance with Silence of the Lambs with one of our strong woman running through the woods towards the beginning of the film. There is the Alien scene of water dripping and the face pointed upwards. There is a fascinating contrast to classic The Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) with the underground, claustrophobic shots done with excellent effect in both movies. There is even the Alien scene in the director's cut with Dallas wanting to die at the end of the movie. Finally there are similarities to The Blair Witch Project (1999) with camera, photographic technique in places.
Unfortunately for this movie, the intelligent, qualitatively superior female potential of this movie descending to the typical (unfortnately perhaps realistic) scene reminiscent from Aliens when the soldiers get trapped underground and almost seemingly go from crack soldier to blind idiots. Unlike the classic Alien and Ripley, the heroine, who is able to project both strength but presence of mind and humanity, this movie entertains the typical descent into hell and The Predator - the kill or be killed mentality - no questions asked. The movie tries, with good intention, but ends up somewhat manipulative, somewhat artificial.
This is a watchable, but not more scary movie than any other. What is has going for it is its new, fresh, taking an old idea and making it better. Except, for example, the worn out ending shot. Six out of Ten Stars.