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List Price: $26.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 48251
Released: September 23, 2003 |
| Our Price: $16.84 |
| Used Price: $7.84 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A civilian oil rig crew is recruited to conduct a search and rescue effort when a nuclear submarine mysteriously sinks. One diver (Ed Harris) soon finds himself on a spectacular odyssey 25,000 feet below the ocean's surface where he confronts a mysteriou
Description of The Abyss (Special Edition):
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 (Special Edition) Reviews:
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...
The Abyss (Special Edition)
2009-07-27 - So SAD, yet another BLUNDER by the folks who released this version. Like many folks today I now own a Widescreen TV, I have 3 actually. I think all movies released today should be WS Anamorphic and NOT 1.85 or 2.35 LETTERBOX !!!!!
Please stop producing LETTERBOX formats, unless the original film was produced in 1.33:1, period !!!
