L'abysse

There was a time, way back in the '80s - before James Cameron suffered head trauma and devoted his life to Avatar - when the man made blockbusters that had a humanity at their core; something instantly relatable despite the sci-fi setting. The Abyss is one of those, with Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio reconciling their failed marriage amidst mortal peril. Indeed, they're trapped miles beneath the ocean's surface, negotiating nuclear warheads, attacking subs and a hair-triggered Michael Biehn.

Cameron creates a realistic environment that still feels otherworldly, populates it with real people and ratchets the tension to unnerving heights. The effects are fantastic, ast are the performances and - as scary as this place is - I would easily come back to revisit.

The Abyss is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi films. It mixes hard science with abject fantasy to make moral and philosophical points about the human condition and our place in the universe without the usual clichés. And it does so with good dialog, strong characterization, and intensely emotional acting. Harris and Mastrantonio are absolutely electric together and dominate the screen, but the entire cast deserves plenty of credit. The production itself is mesmerizing despite its vast scale and tastefully used special effects. The film is long, but worth every second of the experience, and the slightly lengthier, more detailed Special Edition version is even better than the original.

Ostensibly, this is a film about first contact with non-terrestrial intelligence. But the story allegorically deals with an amazing array of themes common to great dramas - violence, love, capitalism, war, courage and cowardice. The hardest, most obedient soldier in the film, played spectacularly by Michael Biehn, is a coward, and a man who is hopelessly in love with his estranged wife (Harris) turns that love into an act of suicidal heroism which might unintentionally save the world. And yet nothing is exactly as it seems to be, and there are really no spoilers in this review. There are so many subtle and sensitively developed themes in this film that it is hard to imagine a more epically human drama in the sci-fi genre. Even so, this is a film which entertains at every level, and will satisfy the action fan as much as the wannabe film critic. ;-)

Most of the film takes place on an experimental submarine drilling platform owned by a petroleum company. A nuclear sub has been lost in "the abyss" - a subduction trench near the Caiman Islands - after encountering an impossibly fast object. Soon, the US military commandeers the platform and its command ship - The Benthic Explorer - to attempt a rescue mission. As everything begins to go wrong, and the encounters with strange phenomena continue, the Navy SEAL in charge of the rescue attempt begins to crack. Meanwhile, on the surface, accusations concerning the sub are escalating between the USSR and USA, and nuclear war seems immanent. This describes just a small segment of the deliciously complex plot that unfolds in The Abyss. You'll have to see it to enjoy the rest.

The story of The Abyss starts with a mysterious crash of a US nuclear submarine that is armed with the appropriate nuclear weaponry for its time. With reports of it down, we want to get it before the Russians do.

When it rains it pours, literally in this case. A fast moving storm forces the Navy to use the crew and equipment from a nearby underwater deep sea drilling platform and the oil roughnecks are promised some big government checks for their help.

Crew chief Ed Harris gives his reluctant consent, made even more reluctant by the fact that his estranged wife Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio has designed some new equipment for use in the really deep waters of The Abyss of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Navy people and the oil people are a bad fit to start with, but when the deep depths effect Navy SEAL Michael Biehn by bringing out the worst aspects of the military authoritarian personality things get real interesting down in the deep.

The spectacle does dwarf the story which is the only real criticism I can make of The Abyss. What the submarine made accidental contact with is some incredible alien life form which I can't go into further because that's the whole point of the film. Of course Biehn still believes it's all a Russian plot of some kind and therein lies the conflict exacerbated by the extreme paranoia he develops.

Unlike Cameron's Titanic, the spectacle at the end just overwhelms the human players in this film. But it was those special effects that go The Abyss its Academy Award recognition. The Abyss was also nominated for Sound and Art&Set Direction and Cinematography. It could have been a winner in any of those categories. In fact the biggest mistake you can make which is the one I did make, to see The Abyss on the small screen and formatted. This film is what IMAX was developed for.

Though the story does get lost somewhat in the special effects the point is still made about man being ready and open to all kinds of possibilities of life that can exist anywhere. See The Abyss, but wait for a revival showing at a theater.

I've never really heard of The Abyss except in Fox DVD commercials. When it came out, I was only 8 and not into sci-fi movies that weren't titled Star Wars. However, now I decided to check it out and was quite pleased with this solid sci-fi movie.

At first, I wasn't quite sure why this was considered sci-fi. It seemed pretty normal with the sinking of a nuclear sub and the hiring of an oil crew to save it. It wasn't for a while till we really got to meet the "extraterrestrial" creatures. The special effects for representing these characters were quite good, and I especially liked the water creature that toured around the rescue vessel. It's also neat to see that effect inspire a similar one used in Terminator 2.

As I said, the story took a little while to gain steam, but it was pretty interesting from then on. The acting was good too, most notably by Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The other actors didn't do anything really extraordinary but serve as solid supporting characters.

Overall, I wouldn't say The Abyss is the best sci-fi movie out there or that it will dethrone Star Wars anytime soon, but rather it's a solid addition for any sci-fi fan's collection.

My IMDb Rating: 8/10. My Yahoo! Grade: B+ (Memorable)

The Abyss was a movie of destiny. First off, this movie either began or was the result of a lifetime obsession James Cameron has the ocean (see later Titanic and his IMAX deep sea movies). The Abyss is also full of echos of claustrophobic thriller/adventure movie Alien, in which Cameron directed the sequel. So combining one of Cameron's old movies with his new obsession, we get The Abyss, a solid sci-fi thriller starring Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Ed Harris plays Bud, the head of an undersea oil rig where very little actually happens and the people on the rig are only there in case something goes wrong. Well, wouldn't you know it, but an American nuclear submarine patrolling the US coast near the oil rig suddenly sinks, killing the sailors on board. The Americans suspect it's the Soviets, but we know better. Something pink and glowing does something to the submarine causing it to sink. A team of Navy seals, ferried down to the rig by Bud's ex-wife Lindsey (Mastrantonio), boards the oil rig and uses it as a command base for their mission to recover the submarine. And that is when the fun begins. Of course a hurricane has to enter into the plot, in movies like this, there is always a hurricane, but beyond, The Abyss is a solid sci-fi thriller, where the oil rig becomes a character in the movie. Much like the Nostromo in Alien or The Discovery in 2001, the tight spaces adds flavor to the movie, bringing the setting in as another character of the movie. The special effects were groundbreaking at the time and hold up well today. The scene of a column of water snaking its way through the oil rig still creeps me out to this day.