source: Cave Rescue

I saw Cave Rescue. From what I can understand, this is the 4th movie-or documentary-in the last 3 years that has been made about this incident. The Cave in 2019, The Rescue in in 2021 & 13 Lives in 2022-by Ron Howard-were the first 3. In case you are unfamiliar with the story, in 2018, a soccer team consisting of 12 teens-ages 11 to 16-and their 25 year old coach were trapped in a massive cave situated in Thailand when a monsoon hit, flooding them in. They were trapped for 10 days before they could even be reached but it took longer-2 weeks total-before they could get anyone out. They could bring them supplies and food but not much else. With the red tape of getting permission from government officials to help in the first place and the logistics of getting them out alive-it took 5 hour dives just to reach them-makes up the majority of the story. There were international highly trained divers wanting to help anyway they could and some of the people that were actually there are playing themselves in the movie. It's an interesting story but I think 4 movies in 3 years is a little much. It's rated PG-13 for language and has a running time of 1 hour & 39 minutes. It's not one that I would buy on DVD but if you are interested, it would be alright as a rental.

The original documentary was all we needed about this rescue. Don't get me wrong, its nice to know people are trying to tell this story around, but... just last week I've also watched Ron Howard's version of the same rescue. Was this just a ripoff, like The Asylum tends to do with blockbuster movies? I particulary do not recommend this one, specially after watching Ron Howard's high-budget version.

The last count is FOUR. Four movies about the same subject released close together. And this one is even worse than the Ron Howard movie. Better watch the one and only truly riveting version and that is the documentary from National Geographic called "The Rescue". All these other movies just do not do real justice to this real life drama. Mind you, this is not a bad movie, not at all, but why watch something inferior when a much better version is readily available?

This movie is EXACTLY the same story as another movie called "Thirteen Lives" which is free to watch on Amazon. It is a really good movie but if you're going to watch it, why pay for it when you can watch it for free.

Why do i see this when i have just watched 13 lives wich was fantastic by the way. By telling from this trailer id rather watch 13 lives , BUT gain i havent watched this and no tend to. Why do i see this when i have just watched 13 lives wich was fantastic by the way. By telling from this trailer id rather watch 13 lives , BUT gain i havent watched this and no tend to. Why do i see this when i have just watched 13 lives wich was fantastic by the way. By telling from this trailer id rather watch 13 lives , BUT gain i havent watched this and no tend to. Why do i see this when i have just watched 13 lives wich was fantastic by the way. By telling from this trailer id rather watch 13 lives , BUT gain i havent watched this and no tend to.

It's not fair to judge this movie poorly simply because it is on the same subject as another movie which came out about the same time (hardly the first time this has happened eg: Deep Impact and Armageddon). However, it would be impossible to not compare them either and there is some enjoyment in doing so. I do think Thirteen Lives is a better movie with a better flow and a better script. I would say better acting, but I actually find the acting pretty even when taking into account that the bad acting in this movie isn't from professional actors but rather the real people involved (that's not to say all the real people had bad line deliveries, some pulled it off quite well such as the diver whom they chose to focus on). Cave Rescue doesn't do as well with showing the danger and complexity of the rescue as Thirteen Lives, but it does still portray that in it's own way and includes details about the rescue that Thirteen Lives does not: the murkiness of the water, the amount of divers from around the world also helping out such as the Chinese diving instructor who was one of the last people out of the cave with one of the American army volunteers when the cave began to rapidly fill again (Thirteen Lives ignores this and shows only Thai Seals outside the divers focused on in the National Geographic documentary). Though Thirteen Lives talks about the world-wide impact, Cave Rescue shows it better. This movie also shows more of the boys and their coach in the cave, and how the coach helped them. Both depict the death of Thai Navy Seal Saman with respect, though in different ways. Thirteen Lives shows (rather than just tell) that he had diving experience and successfully made it through the cave before his death, and depicts a plausible scenario for how he drowned. Cave Rescue shows him volunteering and then the discovery of his body. Thirteen Lives depicts the effect of his death amongst the Thai Navy Seals, whereas Cave Rescue shows some of the funeral, news footage and the impact this may have had on those whose family was also volunteering. So, though this movie isn't as well put together ( and the one I rented on amazon did not have subtitles for the Thai and other languages spoken outside of my own for some reason), it is worth watching. There are many worthwhile documentaries on this, but a movie is a slightly different experience. Documentaries provide information, but movies do more to make the audience feel more involved. I understand feeling tired of multiple movies and/or documentaries coming out at about the same time on the same subject, but that is not the movie's fault. It happens for often very natural reasons (for this it's a big event that affected everyone, and which actually ended happily! Who wouldn't want to make a movie about that?).

Low budget production of the Thai cave rescue, The Ron Howard movie much better but the numerous documentaries out are actually better than the movie version.

Not sure where the low score came from but this is an amazing true story film. There is always a fine line between telling the true story and adjusting it so that it remains theatrical and engaging for 2 hours. This movie straddles that line perfectly. This is real life hero s*** folks. Step back and ask yourself what did you do today? And then take a look at this film and see how life is done. This is the essence of humanity. People from all over the world came together to rescue these kids. One diver lost his life. I loved the variance in languages from Chinese to Thai to English which highlighted how the world came together with interpreters and against all odds rescued these boys... 14 days they were in there and the workers didn't even know if they were alive. Simply incredible story.

Amazing to see how People from around Thailand and even the rest of the world came together, overcame their reservations about others and in the end formed lasting relationships.