Product: The Descent (Original Unrated Cut) [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 3.0
Eh...
The Descent was one of those movies that had me enjoying it and hating it at the same time. I have to agree with other reviewers that mentioned that for a large portion of the audience (me included) the movie was clunky, full of holes and, in a sense, confusing and jumbled. *I have not watched the director's commentary, as I don't think that should be a requirement for enjoying/undertanding a flick.On to the meat of the review. The movie is basic and I like those. You have a group of women who go spelunking/cave diving, run into trouble, meet up with some mutated human monster thingies and get themselves gobbled up. Pretty good so far.The cave scenes were well shot for the most part, nice and tight and then at times opening up into dark caverns and underground water pools, etc. But the tight scenes really get to us cluastraphobic types. Good.The acting was fair for a flick of this type. It wasn't great by any stretch because of the type of charchters, the actors playing them and the script and direction they had to work with. I didn't find myself caring if they made it or not, or forming any chemistry for the cast, but I didn't really find them annoying either. When they would die I was rather indifferent and never even learned most of their names anyway (that is how little you will care about them). In a word: Disposable.The monsters. I liked them. But they were portrayed horribly. Supposedly they had access to the surface the whole time, but they preferred to stay down there and mutate to the point of losing their eyesite. Um, ok, fine. But they have been thriving down there and no one has run into them before, though one of the actors had heard about this cave and knew where to find it. Ok. In addition, the monsters are supposed to be blind and the senses they do use (maybe sound) to navigate and engage prey seems to come and go. They can navigate the caves perfectly, but they apparently have no sense of feel, no sensation towards warmth or cold, and they can dodge physical attacks pretty well for something with a body that size that can't see.Another problem I had with the cast was their gear. They were well supplied with ice-axes and they apparently were carrying medical gear, climbing gear and rope, but none of them were wearing fingered gloves (some didn't have gloves at all)? In addition, they didn't have extra batteries or lamps/lights, but they did have flares. And no knives and only one lighter. They had quite a collection of gear (I don't know how they were carrying it because you couldn't see them carrying much) but they didn't have the stuff I would have thought common to spelunkers. But I haven't done that professionally.The combat scenes with the monsters were jumbled. The cast fluctuates from being quite proficient at defending themselves one moment and then being the helpless victim the next.Ok, now I'm going to make an assumption here, because it helps explain away some of the holes I had at the end of the film. The title, descent, could be indicative of two things: 1) the descent into the cave, 2) the descent into madness by the main charachter. For me, that helped bring some cohesion to the movie, as I was originally struggling to find what the beginning sequence had to do with the rest of the movie.Hmmm...so I enjoyed the movie, but I don't think it was a good movie, I don't think it was well thought out, well-acted or well put together.