Thirteen Lives

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: July 29, 2022

7.3	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 54 Ratings

USER RATING DISTRIBUTION

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Stream On

Review this movie

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Please sign in or create an account before writing a review.

Check box if your review contains spoilers

0 characters (5000 max)

User Reviews

User score By date Most helpful

JLuis_001Aug 11, 2022

Ron Howard is a director with too much expertise and knows his way around the field to allow his work to feel flawed as a whole, but in Thirteen Lives his work and that of his actors, all of whom are well-known names, fail to give this filmRon Howard is a director with too much expertise and knows his way around the field to allow his work to feel flawed as a whole, but in Thirteen Lives his work and that of his actors, all of whom are well-known names, fail to give this film the needed emotion and tension to become the heroic story they were aiming for. Between so much back and forth in the cave, the pace soon stalls and what happens outside of it feels like gratuitous filler.

I don't consider it a bummer, but I did think it would be much better.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

All this user's reviews

bertobellamyAug 9, 2022

Feels redundant after watching the documentary "The Rescue," but at least Ron Howard didn't let himself go with the melodrama this time.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews

robomartionAug 24, 2022

Basically a by the numbers retread of the documentary with better cameras but none of the insight or clarity. Didn't tell us about the lives of the divers or soccer team before hand. Even though the British accents from Viggo and Colin wereBasically a by the numbers retread of the documentary with better cameras but none of the insight or clarity. Didn't tell us about the lives of the divers or soccer team before hand. Even though the British accents from Viggo and Colin were basically half Australian, they seemed good enough for the job but they were not directed enough to give an impactful performance and all the interactions between the divers fell flat. The underwater and cave diving footage was quite well done but still even that could have been done with more precision as there was never enough context given as to the situation inside and out of the cave and there was not enough clarity of which diver you were watching or the ultimate goal of what the diver was supposed to be doing.

You also never truly felt the claustrophobia of what the dive would have been like as the water was mostly crystal clear with the scary sections basically amounting to getting stuck, and you never truly felt the fear, even when the Navy seal drowns because the pacing was off and there was no music to accompany it. It also seemed like they got through the cave too quickly the first time which made all subsequent expeditions feel less impactful. The constant heads up display of the location inside the cave didn't do anything to help us understand the distances and time involved, and more than that actually took you out of the realism. The way Nat Geo did this was far more insightful. They could have used aerial shots of the mountains or CGI of the cave to show how far it was for them to go but all they give you is a white line with a red dot. They could easily have fit in showing us the boys go into the cave which would have showed us how big the cave us and given them a chance to introduce them as actual characters.

I will give points that the final sequence had the anxiety levels up, however when the divers come out at the end, two of the three Thai divers come out together and then the last after and it seemed like only two had come out and then everyone was celebrating while you were left without closure, which made it so the most crucial part of the film - the sigh of relief - never comes. After this, the movie abruptly ends with the boys waving to their mothers in the hospital. We don't see Rick Stanton meet his wife or see the divers get knighted or the Australian diver return home.

Overall the movie is a missed opportunity to expand beyond what the documentary told us. None of the characters are fleshed out, there is no main character, no supporting cast. Just a bunch of actors who fill in for real people, all participating in the aimless goal of retelling a story that was already told more succinctly and in far more detail and impact before in the National Geographic documentary. Apparently a film called 'the Cave' was already made in 2019 and by watching the trailer shows the divers lives before hand. I would watch that or the Nat Geo documentary if you want a more detailed and interesting depiction.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews

Mauro_LanariAug 6, 2022

(Mauro Lanari)
Howard made the event spectacular by adding details, actors, subplots, folklore, bombast, and emptied it of the metaphysical core that on the contrary was central in "The Cave" (Waller 2019): it is deleterious to have stars act(Mauro Lanari)
Howard made the event spectacular by adding details, actors, subplots, folklore, bombast, and emptied it of the metaphysical core that on the contrary was central in "The Cave" (Waller 2019): it is deleterious to have stars act instead of the protagonists of the story, who know how to communicate to us for direct experience what they lived in there and down there, an existential disorientation. The images shot by Howard do not know how to express it and the director takes refuge in didactic dialogues.
Ps: during the end credits Wikipedia is cited as a primary source, while it cannot be by definition, since it is based on reliable third-party sources.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews

the_shadhu_khanApr 16, 2023

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. concept is a survival movie based on a cave
thirteen lives are inside the cave about 18 days , need to rescue them . A mission
an one time watch film. but the thrill vibes are not that great… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews