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Cinepad Review By Jim Emerson (excerpt)
"I give this whole thing a sphincter factor of about 9.5,'' says one of the divers who's trapped on the edge of a black chasm at the bottom of the ocean in James Cameron's The Abyss. And while that line's a good example of the disarming, self-aware humor the characters (and the movie itself) use to occasionally release a little of the intense underwater pressure of The Abyss, it's also an ironic understatement. On a sphincter-factor scale of 1 to 10, The Abyss rates about an 11.
This mega-production from writer/director James Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd (the team who made The Terminator and Aliens) boldly desires nothing less than to be the most overwhelming, ambitious, tension-filled and breathtakingly exciting action-adventure/science-fiction/love story ever.
And for approximately 135 of its 140 minutes, it makes its claim spectacularly. The only let-down comes in the last five minutes before the end credits, but by then The Abyss has already blown you away several times over. By that point, you may just be grateful for the opportunity to catch your breath. (You can read about the movie's real ending -- before Cameron had to cut down the running time -- in the August (1989) issue of Cinefex magazine. Some spectacular effects, including massive tidal waves, originally tied together all of the movie's dramatic/thematic concerns, but were deleted to bring the film in at 2 hours and 20 minutes.)
Much has been written about the movie's high cost (estimated between $40 and $60 million, depending on your source), the arduous shooting schedule, the frictions on the set and the many grueling production and post-production delays that pushed the movie back from its original July 5 release date to August 9. But in this Biggest Movie Summer Ever, it turns out to be propitious that they saved the best for last. For in terms of action, character, story, performances, imagination, spectacle and thematic ambition, The Abyss blows Batman, Indiana Jones and Lethal Weapon 2 right out of the water.
Whatever The Abyss may have cost, it's all been sunk into the authentic, three-dimensional look of the film, which has a depth and immediacy that conventional optical special effects just can't match. The underwater "exteriors'' (40 percent of the movie) were shot in enormous tanks in an abandoned South Carolina nuclear plant. Nothing quite like it has ever been done -- or seen -- on film.
We plunge into The Abyss precipitously, the camera moving right through the title logo and into the ocean, where a nuclear submarine, the USS Montana, navigates 2000 feet below the surface of the Caribbean, along the edge of the seemingly bottomless Cayman Trench. From this moment, the movie's claustrophobic stresses intensify exponentially.
When the sub is mysteriously incapacitated, the US Navy comandeers the crew of "Deepcore,'' a prototype underwater oil rig in the vicinity, to participate in the rescue mission. Deepcore foreman Bud Brigman (Ed Harris) suddenly finds his bottom-dwelling substation boarded not only by a four-man team of Navy SEALs under the command of Lt. Coffey (Michael Biehn), but by Brigman's estranged wife Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), the "Iron Maiden'' who designed the Deepcore base.
From there, writer/director Cameron constructs an ingenious Chinese-box structure of urgent, suspenseful situations, one inside the other. So (without giving anything away), not only is there a potentially earth-shattering encounter with Something Big at the bottom of "the abyss,'' but there's an escalating international incident over the disabled submarine; a hurricane that cuts off power, air and contact with the surface; major leakage in an underwater vessel which is teetering precariously on the brink of a fissure; a crew member with a gun who's suffering from "pressure-induced psychosis''; personal animosity between Bud and Lindsay; a pet mouse who's about to drown... and so on.
Every time you get all worked up about one dilemma, Cameron creates a newer, more immediately threatening one inside or around it. Who has time to worry about global crises (or miscellaneous plot holes -- again caused by missing footage) when, say, your compartment is filling up with water or your excursionary craft is being chased and rammed by a berzerk paranoiac?
While the characters are gulping and scrambling for their lives, Cameron explores his submerged setting -- a world of unfathomable fears and wonders -- on deeper, metaphorical levels.
The film's press kit quotes Friedrich Nietzsche: "When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.'' The dark chasm the characters confront on the ocean floor is also reflected in the unplumbed depths of their own souls. But for all its Jungian unknown/unconscious terrors, there's also a primordial, womb-like quality to this underworld.
Deepcore, for example, is connected to the surface world by an umbilical cord that, eventually, must be cut. And when one character tries on an experimental diving suit filled with a fluid of "oxygenated fluorocarbons'' that will enable him to descend to unheard of depths, he initially (and naturally) resists inhaling the liquid -- until he's reminded that we all breathed liquids for the first nine months of our lives. Although The Abyss is as physically and psychologically terrifying as its title suggests, deep at its core are buoyant images of rebirth.
The film's industrial/organic interior design recalls the motherships in Alien and Aliens. And, like those pictures, the cast consists primarily of rugged, wise-cracking blue-collar workers cut off from the rest of the world. Other, more metaphysical aspects of the picture are reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. But, despite its firm grounding in action-adventure and science-fiction traditions, The Abyss (like its antecedents) is a genre-expanding/exploding original.
The Abyss: A Masterpiece Under the Sea By J.D. LaFrance (excerpt)
The more times I see The Abyss (1989), the more I am convinced that it is James Cameron's best film to date. Wedged between megahits Aliens (1988) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), The Abyss was unfortunately lost in the shuffle. This may also have been due to the flood of leaky underwater films like Leviathan and Deep Star Six, which were released around the same time. Even though The Abyss came out after these financial and critical failures, it was dismissed by most critics as yet another underwater disaster. Most reviewers were clearly tired of this string of underwater themed films and assumed that Cameron's motion picture was no better than the rest.
However, this is simply not the case with The Abyss, which, like many of Cameron's films, is filled with stunning visuals, a strong ensemble cast, and a solid story that is never sacrificed at the expense of the movie's special effects. The Abyss was a project that James Cameron had dreamed of making ever since he was 17 years old. He wrote a "very, very crude and simple story dealing with the idea of being in the very deep ocean and doing fluid breathing and making a descent to the bottom from a staging submersible laboratory that was on the edge."
His original short story concerned the adventures of a "group of scientists in a laboratory at the bottom of the ocean, which is the sort of sci-fi idea that appeals to all kids, I suppose." Over the years, Cameron became involved in numerous other projects but he never forgot about this underwater adventure and wrote several drafts that changed radically over time but the original idea that started it all remained intact. When Terminator (1984) and Aliens became bonafide box office hits, Cameron was in a position to make his dream project a reality. He had no idea the problems that he would face trying to realize this dream.
The bulk of The Abyss was shot in and around Gaffney, South Carolina. At first, this seems like a rather unlikely place to shoot an underwater epic, but it turned out to be the best place after their decision to shoot on-location became unrealistic. "We had originally planned to try filming on location in the Bahamas where the story is set, but we soon realized that we had to have a totally controlled environment because of the stunts and special FX involved." To this end, Cameron found the Cherokee Nuclear Power Station, an abandoned site that proved to be ideal for what they needed.
The film crew ended up shooting all of the underwater sequences (this comprised 40% of all live action principal photography) in two specially constructed concrete containment tanks: one holding 7.5 million gallons of water, and the other holding 2.5 million gallons. As if this wasn't enough of a challenge, the actual shoot consisted of a grueling six month, six-day, 70-hour a week schedule that took its toll on cast and crew alike. "I knew this was going to be a hard shoot, but even I had no idea just how hard. I don't ever want to go through this again," Cameron remarked at the time.
And yet, the sense that what they were making was groundbreaking and worth doing was the glue that kept everything together. The film's producer, Gale Anne Hurd clearly viewed The Abyss in this fashion. "No one has attempted this before, and we had to solve everything from how to keep the water clear enough to shoot, to how to keep it dark enough to look realistic at 2,000 feet where it's pitch black." By all accounts, the cast and crew thrived on this challenge, and as the final results demonstrate, succeeded in producing a truly stunning work.
Like all of Cameron's other films the action plays a secondary role to the central love story - whether it was between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor in Terminator or Ripley and Newt in Aliens. In The Abyss we are presented with a disintegrating relationship between Bud and Liz. And yet, as the film progresses and we spend more time with these two people, we begin to realize that they still love each other and that this is what adds a real element of humanity to the special effects-laden film. But The Abyss is much more than that. It mixes elements of an exciting thriller, action film, and science fiction story together in one great package.
The way the film is structured, we are presented with several small movies that, when linked together, comprise a larger whole. It is this wonderful structure that makes one realize that there is more going on than a search for a missing submarine. As Cameron demonstrated with Terminator, he has a real eye for action sequences and The Abyss is no different.
One scene in particular, demonstrates Cameron's ability to create moments of white knuckle intensity. Several compartments of the underwater rig begin flooding, while crew members try frantically to escape to a safer area.
Cameron's hand-held camera follows these men through the claustrophobic hold at such a breakneck pace, via a compelling first person point-of-view angle, that one can't help but get caught up in the feeling of urgency brought on by this dangerous situation. At times, it feels like you are actually bouncing through the tight corridors of the rig alongside the characters and this enhances the thrill and excitement of such adrenaline-fueled sequences. The Abyss is also similar to Cameron's previous film Aliens in the sense that both have a top rate ensemble cast.
The crew of the rig all have their own distinctive personalities, which are each given their own moment to shine and never detract from the larger story. The interaction between these people has a ring of honesty and authenticity, which suggests that every character is important and crucial to the film's outcome. But these colourful characters never obscure the three main principles who are also fully-fleshed characters each with his or her own agenda. Ed Harris portrays Bud as a man dedicated to his rig and his people, but he cannot balance his work life with his personal life.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's Liz is, as she later admits, "a cast iron bitch," but underneath the hard, tough exterior there are occasional glimpses of a sensitive dreamer fighting to get out. Cameron regular Michael Biehn (an underused actor also seen in Terminator and Aliens) personifies intensity as the leader of the Navy SEALs who slowly loses his grip on reality and his priorities, posing a threat to the safety of everyone on the rig. Each of these characters has their own inner conflicts as well as the larger conflict that threatens everyone. One of the pleasures of watching The Abyss is seeing how these personal conflicts play out and resolve themselves by the end of the film.
The Abyss deviates from Cameron's other features in the sense that it stresses the idea of settling disputes through non-violent means. Violence in the film is not the solution to the problem, but the source. This idea is illustrated through Lt. Coffey, the main instigator of violence in the film. His violent acts create the many problems that the protagonists face and this ultimately results in his demise. On the other hand, Liz personifies the peaceful alternative. Where the selfish Coffey sees anger and hatred, Liz is willing to sacrifice herself for others.
She is the calming effect on everyone and her presence on the rig is pivotal in resolving many of the story's conflicts. It's a refreshing view that you don't often see in films nowadays where everything is solved at the end of a gun. Unfortunately, this viewpoint seems to have disappeared from Cameron's subsequent work, which has since regressed to the usual violent antics.
Whether it was because of the film's failure to connect and succeed on a mass level or the departure of long time partner, Gale Anne Hurd, is unknown, but with True Lies (1994), Cameron seems to have abandoned a strong, independently minded female character for one who is objectified by the camera and on the receiving end of a lot of misogynistic behavior.
It's too bad because The Abyss contains none of this and instead points the way for a new kind of action-oriented film that stresses problem solving over violence, while still providing the requisite amount of thrills. This is a much-needed antidote to the mindless violence and anger that is problematic in so many films today. The Abyss was ultimately sunk by poor timing. Being released after two horrible underwater films was not a wise move. Critics and audiences were just not receptive to yet another underwater film, especially one that clocked in at over two hours.
The Abyss is a truly special film that never lags in pace or interest thanks to the many stunning visuals courtesy of breathtaking computer animation from Industrial Lights and Magic (effects that were the precursor to ones used in Terminator 2). There are also fascinating characters and exciting, often intense situations that keeps the viewer involved in the story. The Abyss is one of those rare films that you wish wouldn't end because the world and the characters that inhabit it are so compelling and exciting.
This film demonstrates, yet again, that James Cameron is one the few directors who can make good science fiction films, with a strong story, a solid cast, and exceptional images that help elevate it above the usual Hollywood dreck and straight-to-video sci-fi clunkers. And that is truly something special at a time of militaristic, flag-waving propaganda like Independence Day (1996), which proports to be entertainment but is just another mindless special effects workout.
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