EDDIE CIBRIAN (TYLER) and LENA HEADEY (KATHRYN) star in THE CAVE. Photo Credit: COS AELENEI. ©2005, Cineblue Internationale Filmproduktionsgesellschaft MbH & Co. 1. Beteiligungs KG. All rights Reserved.

Plotless movies are often the most fun because they require so little effort to watch. Their sole reason for existence is typically to entertain an audience of testosterone-filled guys with a few key ingredients: shitloads of explosions, graphic violence, heroic men, beautiful women, loathsome villains, and last but certainly not least, plenty of boobs and butts. “The Cave” certainly has some of these characteristics. For example, I can safely say I’ve never seen a film that showcased so many exploding scuba tanks. Exploding scuba tanks aside, when all is said and done there isn’t nearly enough eye-candy for this film to qualify as the type of plotless crowd-pleaser it feebly attempts to be.

The film begins in Romania, 30 years in the past, as a team of obviously-gonna-die British spelunkers happens upon an ancient church sitting directly above the cave. Who they are and why they are looking for the cave isn’t really an important plot point obviously, because neither of these things are explained in the film. What is important is that they arrive to find a spooky mural depicting evil winged serpents that marks the entrance. A local guide crosses himself in fear, but the group of geniuses with him are clearly unafraid—so unafraid it seems, that after having detonated an explosive on the seal in an attempt to clear the entrance to the cave they make the inexplicable decision to stand directly on top of the crumbling seal. The explosion triggers a landslide and soon every member of this hapless crew tumbles through the floor into the cave, essentially entombed. The now severly screwed team of spelunkers hear strange noises all around them… and then the movie-screen fades to black and we in the audience assume that they become monster chow.

Flash-forward to the present. A mysterious Dr. Nicolai and his beautiful assistant Katherine (Lena Headey) have unearthed the remains of the old church, and thus the enormous cave sitting underneath it. They then call upon a group of cave-divers headed up by Jack (the always interesting Cole Hauser) and his buffed up brother Tyler (Eddie Cibrian). The crew also consists of the utterly humongous diver Buchanan (Morris Chestnut) and expert-climber/hottie Charlie (Piper Perabo)…and a few other characters that any self-respecting moviegoer knows will be killed off before the movie is over.

After this crack team goes into a cave for basically no good reason other than because it’s there, they spend the rest of the film trying to get out and trying not to get eaten by big disgusting monsters. Upon entering the abyss the team finds a lot of human skulls, gnawed-on femurs and hiking boots belonging to previous explorers (I half-expected them to stumble upon the bones of the late Chester Copperpot). After the team becomes trapped below the surface, Jack is wounded by one of the creatures an is infected by a parasite that seems to be changing him into a monster. After this happens, arguments ensue—about taking command away from Jake and about which tunnel will lead the team to the surface—and these occur approximately every five minutes. Minor characters are attacked and killed by computer-generated monsters shortly after each argument, but sadly these characters, who exist solely for the purpose being killed off, die bloodlessly (and boringly) off-screen.

The acting is on par with what you’d expect of this type of film, which is to say that only after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride will an Academy Award® be sitting on anyone’s mantel for their performance in “The Cave.” This however, is as it should be…because no one going into this movie is expecting to see “Citizen Kane.” This film’s draw is all about its plotless premise and the ensuing carnage, not about whether or not an actor is emoting properly in his role of mutant-fodder.

This leads me to my main beef with this film. If you’re making a movie about monsters that stalk and kill people, then at least show them stalking and killing people. The fatal stench of a studio-imposed PG-13 is wafting all about this production—but why? I certainly don’t see how such a rating is going to convince mothers and fathers across the country to take their kids to see a movie about people getting munched on by hideous creatures in a cave. Likewise, I’m sure that parents everywhere will appreciate the lack of foul language when Charlie cries out to her fellow doomed buddies, “They can friggin’ fly!” Nevermind the obvious expletive that would likely escape the mouth of any grown adult being attacked by an enormous, flying monster. If you’re watching a horror movie so afraid of getting an “R” rating from the MPAA that a character has to use the word “friggin’” at a moment of complete and utter horror then all I can say is, “Abandon hope all ye who enter ‘The Cave’.”

My verdict: Wait for the inevitable “un-rated” DVD.