Ed Harris Movie:

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 computerized 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 favor of the can-do engineers; the military types are end-justifies-the-means amoralists, just like the weasely government bureaucrats in Aliens. --David Chute

The Abyss Reviews:
The Abyss is Cameron's Water-themed Masterpiece
2009-12-12 - With all due respect to The Titanic, which is also a masterpiece, James Cameron's "The Abyss" remains, more than twenty-years after its release, the pre-eminent water-based film.

To the professional reviewer who complained about the plodding pace of this film I would ask "just exactly what film were you WATCHING?" The Abyss is fleshed out with intriguing character development and scenes that make you identify with and care about what happens, but these scenes hang on a skeleton of many of the most scintillating and hair-raising set-pieces ever filmed.

When the original theatrical release of this movie occurred in 1989, I was a submariner on the U.S.S. Tennessee, an Ohio-class submarine like the U.S.S. Montana, the fictional submarine that encounters some unknown deep-sea disturbance before sinking in a scene that was horrifyingly realistic to myself and my shipmates who went from the darkened theatre back to the Tennessee. Except for a water-tight door outside of the ship's control center, the submarine depicted in the film was eerily realistic. The scene where submariners know they are losing the ship, as well as their own lives, was harrowing in the extreme.

Ed Harris plays Bud Brigman, the leader of an underwater oil-drilling rig that is closest to the sunken Montana. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays Lindsey, Bud's estranged wife and the designer of the deep sea rig. Michael Biehn plays LT Coffey, the leader of the Seal Team the Navy sends down to Bud's rig to lead a search and rescue mission of the submarine.

A masterful supporting cast rounds out the all-too-human drama taking place far under the water. Absolutely amazing underwater scenes keep you on the edge of your seat as you learn that the Seal team has secret orders to secure a nuclear warhead from the submarine to destroy anything the Soviets may try to salvage from the wreckage and the undersea team learns a little at a time that they are not alone.

A word must be provided contrasting the Special Edition to the original theatrical version. Some "special edition" movies simply pad the running time with scenes that were wisely cut from the version that is released. The Abyss special edition adds almost 30 minutes that completely change the tone of the original. The ending, previously weak to the point of near ridicule as a Deux-ex-machina is introduced, now resonates in a way that makes you think "every single human being on the planet should watch this."

I have deliberately tried to avoid spoilers, but if you're a human being... you should watch The Abyss Special Edition.

Peace

Keeper
2009-11-14 - This is a great timeless movie to have in your library. I have never tired of it. When one wears out -- I get another just to keep on hand for the week it rains "all week."

Poor definition and grainy not suitable for 60" tv
2009-11-01 - I was disapointed in how poor the definition was on this "special edition". the scan lines were often clearly visible and distracting when people were talking or when displaying graphics like the text sent on the deep dive.

If you have a large TV even with a good DVD player that upscales well, it will make for poor viewing. Too bad because this was a spectacular special effects movie.

Crushing Depth...
2009-10-13 - Having now seen both the theatrical and extended versions of THE ABYSS, I must say that I love them equally. While the shorter cut condenses the action, leaving out some of the geo-political turmoil and epic disaster happening topside, its focus is on the small-scale war being waged below. In the longer cut, we get the fleshed-out, more globally aware "cold war" story. Having both together is a real treat. Loaded w/ interesting personalities and intense situations, director James Cameron melds action, suspense, and sci-fi flawlessly. The three main characters played by Ed Harris (A History Of Violence), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Scarface), and Cameron regular Michael Behn (The Terminator, Aliens) carry the movie brilliantly. Things happen fast and w/ explosive impact, so that by the time the aliens truly make themselves known, we're already teatering on several brinks! Highest recommendation...

NON-ANAMORPHIC?!
2009-08-15 - The Abyss (Special Edition) is not the set that a proper cinephile would appreciate.

I was so excited that this DVD was on sale at Best Buy for $9.99 that I immediately bought it. I put it in to play on my widescreen TV to find out that Fox did not set this DVD up to be played on HDTVs! I have to set the picture in a 4:3 image to watch a film that is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
This set is utterly disappointing! I would recommend that everyone wait for this to be released on BluRay. Only then will Fox actually make good on their "special edition" promise. At least, I hope they will...