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The Abyss [1989]
from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, Leo Burmester, Todd Graff
directed by James Cameron

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

Meticulously crafted but also ponderous and predictable, James Cameron's 1989 deep-sea close-encounter epic reaffirms one of the oldest first principles of cinema: everything moves a lot more slowly underwater. Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, as formerly married petroleum engineers who still have some "issues" to work out, are drafted to assist a gung-ho Navy SEAL (Michael Biehn) with a top- secret recovery operation: a nuclear sub has been ambushed and sunk, under mysterious circumstances, in some of the deepest waters on earth, and the petro-techies have the only submersible craft capable of diving down that far. Every image and every performance is painstakingly sharp and detailed (and the computerised water creatures are lovely) but the movie's lumbering pace is ultimately lethal. It's the audience that ends up feeling waterlogged. For a guy who likes guns as much as Cameron (his next film after all, was the body-count masterpiece Terminator 2: Judgment Day), it's interesting that the moral balance here is weighted heavily in favour of the can-do engineers; the military types are end-justifies-the-means amoralists, just like the weasely government bureaucrats in Aliens. --David Chute

James Cameron's 1989 aquatic epic The Abyss was, quite literally, a watershed in the annals of filmmaking: not only was it the first (and only) movie to be shot almost entirely underwater, in the largest tank ever used for a movie set, and to use live dialogue from specially designed headsets, it also pushed forward the boundaries of computer animation in one gigantic leap. The famous water tentacle sequence is now regarded as the defining moment when CGI came of age; ironically perhaps, its very success has ensured that the punishing realism of the setting, which is the best thing about the movie, is likely never to be attempted again.

But the impressive technical aspects aside, is the movie any good? Granted it contains any number of striking moments, from forcing a rat to breathe liquid (it really works, apparently) to resurrecting a drowned Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. But the story is a slim one for the running time, especially in the extended Special Edition version which plays almost half an hour longer than the theatrical cut and contains a completely excised subplot featuring much too much heavy-handed moralising: "How all the world can stop fighting and learn to get along with each other", by James Cameron esq. All you need is love, apparently. Here is one rare example of the theatrical cut being preferable to the director's. Now, if only he had cut the love story from Titanic too

On the DVD: The Abyss Special Edition two-disc set has plenty of neat extra features, but is let down a little by the non-anamorphic 2.35:1 letterboxed picture. Sound, on the other hand, is vivid THX mastered Dolby 5.1. Happily, the first disc contains both the original theatrical cut and the extended special-edition version. There's a reasonably informative though inevitably rather dry text-only commentary. The principal extra on Disc 2 is a 60-minute documentary, "Under Pressure", with retrospective interviews in which cast and crew detail the extraordinary challenges involved in making the film, and more than one near-death experience. In addition there's the complete screenplay, various different pieces on the effects sequences, storyboards, artwork, DVD-ROM features--in short, plenty to keep even jaded DVD enthusiasts amused for hours. The menu interfaces for both discs are a treat and the set comes with a good 12-page booklet. --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• Superb viewing....
  Just want to say that this film stands the test of time for me. It is heartwarming, the special effects really work even today and its watchable over and over again....Just one thing, do watch the directors cut, or special edition, as I think that the cuts that were made to the original movie do remove quite a lot of the message of the film and without that, you miss the point somewhat.

• Imaginative, touching, and almost complete...
  The Abyss is one of the those accomplished films that may have well been produced in an era gone by, for now attempts of the 'same old formula's' are chugged out right, left and centre. The Abyss, however, is completely original in it's own right. With beautiful underwater photography, fantastic camera-work that sets the tone for enclosed cabins or the vast openness of the ocean, this was surely ahead of it's time. I.L.M (Industrial Light and Magic) were in Co-Production for this movie and produced the... more info

• Camerons second best.
  Of course i mean 'Aliens' to be the first, but this doesn't fall too far behind.
  I mean, yeah sure it's melodramatic as hell and the message it carries is about as subtle as being slapped in the face but it is hugely entertaining, the special effects are fantastic even by todays standard and its entertaining as hell. Should be a lot more popular than it is.

• GREAT EFFECTS AND STORY
  For once, the aliens don't want a meal, to take over the world or to scare the hell out of us.
  A deep sea mission to recover a sunken nuclear submarine faces disaster as a storm above them has cut off all contact with their support ships. As the base begins to flood the crew come face to face with things unknown. The SEAL team tasked with recovery of the nuclear warheads on the sub suspect 'commies' and seek to detonate a warhead, denying the bad guys the remaining nukes, but vapourising everybody in... more info

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