The Abyss, 1989.
Directed by James Cameron.
Starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn.
SYNOPSIS:
James Cameron’s The Abyss has finally, after years of fans asking for it, been released in a 4K remastered edition. This is just the digital version, though — the 4K Ultra HD release is slated for early next year. However, if you want to grab a copy now, you should know that you’ll get two new featurettes along with a big pile of legacy extras.
Yes, you get two blasphemous opinions from me in my latest reviews: As I said in my review of the digital release of True Lies, The Abyss is a James Cameron film that I put in my “It’s okay” bucket. I watched it once way back when and watched it again for this review, and my opinion has stayed the same.
To be fair, I took in the theatrical edition this time, whereas last time I watched the Special Edition. Unlike Cameron’s extended version of Aliens, though, I don’t think the Special Edition of The Abyss did much for the movie.
The story opens with a United States military sub encountering an unknown object deep in the ocean and sinking, killing all aboard. The government sends a SEAL team to Deep Core, a privately owned drilling platform, to use as a base of operations for a mission to find out what happened, since it’s closest to the incident.
Ed Harris is Bud, Deep Core’s hard-edged foreman, and Michael Biehn plays Hiram Coffey, leader of the SEAL team. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio comes aboard Deep Core as Bud’s estranged wife Lindsey, who designed the platform and demands that she accompany the SEAL team.
Meanwhile, a major hurricane is brewing and the Soviet Union is racing to reach the sunken sub before the SEAL team does, creating a ticking clock against a backdrop of strange activity in the deep ocean. Think of it as Close Encounters of the Third Kind underwater, which, I’ll admit, is a cool idea.
Hiram treats the NTIs (“non-terrestrial intelligence,” as Lindsey calls them) as a threat and is ready to do whatever it takes to destroy them, consequences be damned, while Lindsey wants to learn more and Bud takes on the role of skeptic turned believer. Unfortunately, the scenes with the NTIs don’t really mesh well with the overall plot; I think The Abyss could have been made without the inclusion of the NTIs and would have been pretty much the same movie.
The theatrical version’s ending is a bit of a dud, although the Special Edition expands on the tensions between the United States and the Soviets, giving the NTIs a purpose for what they’re doing that’s revealed in the end. However, that purpose is a bit hokey and silly, and, again, I was left with feeling like The Abyss could have done without “CE3K underwater” as its premise.
As I said with True Lies, though, this isn’t an awful movie. It’s a fun ride, and it’s well-made. At the time, the CGI effects employed to show the water-based NTIs were ground-breaking. I just don’t think the story warrants all the hoopla, except for the fact that James Cameron made this film.
Like True Lies, The Abyss has been remastered in 4K and released digitally with a big batch of bonus features. Both movies will be out on 4K Ultra HD early next year, along with Aliens. Meanwhile, Titanic and the first two Avatar movies have already been issued on 4K Ultra HD and various digital platforms in feature-packed editions.
While True Lies had scant extras on Movies Anywhere (apparently Apple TV is the place to go for that one), The Abyss has a nice batch of bonus features, including the Special Edition, although I don’t think it has been remastered in 4K too. (We’ll see if that’s true when the discs come out.)
The studio commissioned a pair of new extras, Deep Dive: A Conversation With James Cameron (32 minutes) and The Legacy of The Abyss (24 minutes). The content of both is pretty clear from the titles, and the interviews include new and archival thoughts along with plenty of behind-the-scenes footage.
Under Pressure: Making The Abyss, which dates back to the DVD days, is included here too. It runs about an hour, so between it and the two new featurettes, I’d say the movie is pretty well covered.
The rest of the extras include three trailers and a bunch of clips that show how tough it was to film above and under water, along with the claustrophobic submarine sets, a time lapse video of the construction of the huge Deep Core set, a 20-minutes visual effects reel, and a couple examples of how rear projection was used with miniatures and how motion control was employed during some shots.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★★★ / Movie: ★★★
Brad Cook
Originally published December 24, 2023. Updated April 22, 2024.
