This might be painful for you, but it’s important to remember. Join us as we think back to 2011′s most forgettable flicks.

Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles shocked everyone when it enjoyed a surprisingly bigger opening than anyone expected. It actually started a trend of studios eager to buy anything that featured a science fiction plotline, no matter how flimsy. Though not a terrible movie (Michelle Rodriguez gets punched by an alien), it was just missing a certain ingredient and proved almost instantly forgettable. If memory serves, they kill the aliens with water or something.

The Green Hornet

Seth Rogen lost all that weight for nothing. It took a lot of effort to bring The Green Hornet to the screen, but sadly, most of that effort was spent wrangling the behind-the-scenes egos of director Michel Gondry and almost star Stephen Chow. Another obstacle the film faced was being overshadowed by the release of The Green Lantern. The name similarities only confused the baby, and The Green Hornet was asked to stop coming around so much.

The Rite

Anthony Hopkins versus demons should be a no-brainer hit. In 1993. However, he’s got too many crappy movies in his past for audiences to bother with this generic exorcism tale. Let’s just all rewatch that movie where he acts like a monkey.

Sanctum is one of those classic stories about a team of distinct personalities lending their specific skills to a highly specialized mission. Then something goes wrong and those skills either help them escape or seal their doom.

In a team of cave divers, Frank (Richard Roxburgh) is the tough as nails veteran, who’s alienated his son Josh (Rhys Wakefield) with his disciplinarian ways. Judes (Allison Cratchley) is the Sigourney Weaver look-a-like who’s daring enough to follow Frank. Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) is the fun loving rich adventurer showing his babe Victoria (Alice Parkinson) some excitement. George (Dan Wyllie) is the techie on the monitor and there are some other people. Character development is proportionate to how soon they die.

The Imax 3D looks great. The film fills the whole Imax frame, not like some of those letterboxed blow-ups. The dimensions of depth are clear so it looks like you’re really looking into a scene, not just layers of footage converted at different levels. An interesting effect is when the camera bobs half under the water, because the wet part is distorted while the dry part remains clear.

The film builds as much suspense as it can on the diving alone. Carl does a daring base jump into the water. The crew sends lights after the divers via remote control. A tank leak fills a diver’s mask and threatens to sink her. That’s all dangerous or technical, but it seems like you’d have to really be a pro diver to find any of it suspenseful.

Even when the film becomes Poseidon Adventure in a cave, it feels realistic but not necessarily dramatic. A rush of water makes it dangerous for the team to climb to an exit, and when a boulder seals them in it’s going to be even tougher to find an alternative path. You’re still watching people swim or climb and taking their word for it that it’s hard. I trust their word, but I’m not invested.The story is pretty hardcore. Frank outright euthanizes a diver who’s just not going to make it through the caves. There’s not enough wetsuits so they have to warm up Victoria. George gets the bends. I won’t spoil this one but someone gets their skin caught in climbing gear and that’s graphic. These are all really deadly conditions that emphasize the danger, but in a script they’re just benchmarks and excuses for picking off team members.

It must have been really hard for director Alister Grierson to film in those caves and get any footage that can even cut together, let alone make sense of a narrative. I would have been more impressed if John Garvin and Andrew Wight had written a real script. So they use a disaster to work through Josh’s daddy issues. So does every disaster movie. Sanctum is just so dire it’s no fun.

“For ‘Avatar 2,’ what I’m most interested in is getting theaters to up their light level… And we want to shoot the movie at 48 or maybe even 60 frames a second, and display it at that speed, which will eliminate a lot of the motion artifacts that I think are causing some people problems… People talk about feeling sick or something like that, and I think it’s because the image is strobing. That’s a function of the 24 frame frame rate, which has actually got nothing to do with 3D. It’s just made more apparent because the 3D is otherwise such an enhanced, realistic image, that all of a sudden you’re aware of this funky strobing which you weren’t aware of.”

This is certainly good news if you’re sick of those headaches that sometimes accompany 3D movies. I’m an ignoramus when it comes to frame rates and the like, so I can’t speculate on what something like that would do to a movie’s look. Anyway, bring your own strobe lights and glow sticks to Avatar 2, because Cameron is not having it. (SlashFilm)

Director: Alister Grierson

Cast: Richard Roxburgh, Alice Parkinson, Rhys Wakefield

Synopsis: An underwater cave diving team experiences a life-threatening crisis during an expedition to the unexplored and least accessible cave system in the world.

Release Date: February 4, 2011

Universal has dropped the trailer for the James Cameron-produced 3D cave disaster movie Sanctum. This film contains three of Cameron’s favorite things: water, tight spaces, and 3D. No wonder he wanted his name on it even if he probably really didn’t do anything to aid production.

Sanctum follows a team of underwater cave divers on a treacherous expedition to the largest, most beautiful and least accessible cave system on Earth. When a tropical storm forces them deep into the caverns, they must fight raging water, deadly terrain and creeping panic as they search for at unknown escape route to the sea. There’s a master diver, his teenage son, a hot but brave chick, and a financier who will probaby get a stalagmite to the face. Just guessing. 

Sanctum lands in theaters February 4, 2011.

Check out the trailer below.

Sanctum Trailer – Watch more Movie Trailers