Brainless popcorn creature fodder awaits you in The Cave, a by-the-numbers B-flick that never should have made it out of the subterranean Hollywood hole from which it came. The whole thing is a bootleg patchwork of rehashed ideas that'll make you cringe only because so much money was wasted on it -- namely yours! To begin with, this monster fright fest is missing the frights. There's one jump scare that only works because of the blaring musical cue, but otherwise, don't look for the thrills here. Not even the creatures work, thanks to an underwhelming design from creature-creator Patrick Tatopoulos (Underworld, the American Godzilla), whose junk-shop designs are thankfully hidden behind blurry CG and nonsensical editing. With a listless cast filling out soulless characters and zero human drama to keep things going, the movie becomes a tedious affair that's one half-step above a Nu Image Sci-Fi Channel flick, except without the entertaining cheese element. Vastly inferior to Neil Marshall's unnerving twin cave flick The Descent from the same year, The Cave is another big, boring mess that somehow found its way to theaters while other more competent films fight through festivals just to be seen.