Not only is the film dreadfully dull: every time something potentially exciting does occur, the scenes are so muddled and chaotic that it is impossible to make out what is happening.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The screenplay is thin, the dialogue lacks nuance and the acting is often laughable.
"Alien" redux.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
It's increasingly hard to work up a fright on the screen these days, but even if The Cave doesn't exactly terrify, it's fun and looks great.
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
A bottomless pit of lame characters, horror-film cliches and improbable monsters.
Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman
The writers supply character traits that seem to point toward a pay-off but never reach one. People all end up as tight-lipped, indistinguishable automatons who plummet 50 feet down jagged rocks with scarcely a scratch.
Refreshing strokes of science-fact in the early sections give way to action strictly from the Ridley Scott-James Cameron playbook, but without a powerful helmer behind the camera or a memorable cast in front.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker
The utter lack of tension or suspense is as dumbfounding as Hunt's blender approach to editing, which purees action scenes into incoherent mashes of image confetti.