When a thriller set beneath Papua New Guinea name-checks National Geographic magazine not once, but twice, it’s safe to say the focus might be on pretty pictures than pulse-quickening. Such it is with Sanctum, an Australian film to which James Cameron has attached his name as executive producer, because the guy gets erect for projects dealing with underwater exploration.

But don’t expect The Abyss. Fantastic Four‘s Ioan Gruffudd plays a billionaire financing a cave-diving scubafest that takes expert Frank (Richard Roxburgh) and his crew through tight squeezes as they venture through heretofore unexplored territory. Disaster strikes when a cyclone up top floods the caverns.

From there, it’s a swim for survival, with nature providing just as much conflict as Frank’s whiny, put-upon son (Rhys Wakefield). Any guess as to whether he and Pop will work things out by the end? Originality is not Sanctum‘s strong suit. I’m not sure it has one, but if it does, it’s in making viewers queasy with claustrophobia. (That could be because I was weak from hunger.)

Bad dialogue clashes with bad acting from all involved except Roxburgh. Gruffudd overacts to the point of being a cartoon (can we call a ban on all Apocalypse Now references in helicopter scenes from here on out?) and Alice Parkinson, as his girlfriend, reads her lines as if she’s expecting to be dubbed. And sorry, Jim, but the 3-D isn’t All That. Sanctum may not stink, but it sinks. —Rod Lott

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How can you tell Lipstick was made in the ’70s? Two out of the three credited experts are male. Back then, you could make a movie about rape and still barely consider the female point of view. This probably explains why it’s best remembered today as a lurid melodrama, and not the call to social action some of those involved clearly wanted it to be.

In the film, Margaux Hemingway plays a model whose life is torn apart when she is raped by a psychotic music teacher (Chris Sarandon). When the jury buys his lawyer’s argument that she was asking for it by having a vagina, she is suddenly unemployable and ready to leave town after her last photo shoot.

Tragically, however, Sarandon is in the same building as the shoot and decides to attack Margaux’s adolescent sister (her real-life sibling, Mariel). Knowing the law isn’t on her side, Margaux decides to grab a shotgun and ensure Sarandon never hurts anyone else ever again (by shooting him in the balls).

Lipstick ends with the jury exonerating Margaux via an obviously last-minute voiceover. Apparently, the irony that she might go to prison after her attacker was freed was too much for audiences to take, and the producers decided to go with a happier ending. This irony might have gone a long way toward justifying the film’s long middle stretch of interminable courtroom scenes, but we’ll never know. Instead, the end result is a mostly terrible movie with a handful of effectively gripping scenes that can only be recommended to die-hard fans of the rape-revenge genre. —Allan Mott

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The 1970s were ripe for great crime movies. Telefon may not be the pinnacle of the genre, but it’s good. It’s an unlikely vehicle for star Charles Bronson, as a KGB agent (but with no accent) trying to stop World War III by defeating rogue Russian Donald Pleasence, who’s using the telephone to dial up various Yankees who unknowingly have subliminal missions buried in their brains.

When Donald calls and recites a Robert Frost poem, it triggers them to enter a trance and embark on a suicide mission, whether that be taking out a military installation, an oil refinery or a phone company. It’s awfully repetitive, especially for a Don Siegel film, but its ‘70s tough-as-nails attitude cannot be denied.

Lee Remick, however beautiful, is clearly miscast as Bronson’s American agent who goes undercover with him (but thankfully, not under covers). If anything, Telefon serves as proof that Tyne Daly (here a CIA analyst) was ugly long before she got portly. —Rod Lott

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Britain’s Jekyll may be the best movie never made of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, because it was actually a made-for-television miniseries. The BBC six-parter is a true reinvention of both concept and character, making for a most unpredictable ride.

Front and center is James Nesbitt (Match Point) as Jekyll, a doctor who’s keeping quite the secret from his lovely wife (Gina Bellman, TV’s Leverage) and their two sons. He’s spending time with another lovely, younger woman (Michelle Ryan, TV’s Bionic Woman). Oh, they’re not having an affair — he’s hired her to keep him and everyone else safe from his other, not-better half, the lecherous, fanged gadabout who calls himself Hyde.

But this is not the Jekyll/Hyde tale you’ve seen dozens of times before, unless there’s one I don’t know about where Hyde kills a lion, tosses the supposed king of the jungle onto the van of his would-be captors, and then sings a spirited round of the “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” while standing atop the zoo’s caged den. Not a one of its six hours is a repeat of any before it.

In fact, what begins as a suburban horror story flips its switch into sci-fi mode as the high-tech conspiracy against Jekyll grows deeper and his origins are told in time-tripping fashion. Nesbitt plays both sides of the coin to excellence; his Hyde is a saucy, sexually charged ball of confidence and venom, giving the show a darkly comic veneer. The epic comes from the diabolically creative mind of Steven Moffat, who more recently took the same purists-be-damned, start-from-scratch approach to the world’s greatest detective with the BBC’s brilliant Sherlock. No shit! —Rod Lott

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Having second thought about getting a vasectomy? Watch Orphan and you’ll be reaching for the kitchen scissors and a hand mirror before the third act. It’s not like there’s a dearth of evil-kid suspensers, but the girl at the center of this one could turn you into a misogynist.

Her name’s Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a 9-year-old girl from Russia adopted by a lesbian couple — oh, that’s Peter Sarsgaard, you say? My bad! — a married couple grieving over the sudden death of their third baby. Kate (Vera Farmiga) is a recovering alcoholic; she and hubby John (Sarsgaard) have a deaf daughter and an asshole son, so adding a cold-blooded killer to the mix seems like a natural move.

Esther’s warming-up period includes watching John bend Kate over the kitchen counter. Kate tries to explain: “They want to show that love, they want to express it.” Replies Esther, “I know — they fuck.” (Art Linkletter, you were so correct!) Before long, the girl is breaking legs, killing nuns, destroying marriages, setting fires, playing the piano even though she said she couldn’t — is there no end to her reign of terror?

By-the-numbers it may be, Orphan is at least well-made mediocrity by House of Wax director Jaume Collet-Serra, and Farmiga seems not to realize this is a Dark Castle release — she acts the hell out of the thing as if AMPAS voters might be sniffing around on accident. Its biggest mystery isn’t what made Esther the pigtailed bitch that she is, but: 1) who thought that twist would work, and 2) why is this thing over two hours long? Why, God, why? —Rod Lott

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