The Abyss (Special Edition)
by James Cameron
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ed Harris, Leo Burmester, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, Todd GraffDirector: James Cameron
Brand: HARRIS,ED
Cinematographer: Mikael Salomon
Writer: James Cameron
Editor: Conrad Buff IV
Editor: Howard E. Smith
Editor: Joel Goodman
Producer: Gale Anne Hurd
Producer: Van Ling
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 138 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-02-11
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Abyss (Special Edition)
Movie Review: This piece of solid sci-fi/adventure comes to DVD
Summary: 4 Stars
A solid cast of characters and an interesting premis drive this sci-fi offering. Ed Harris is the tool pusher, the #1 man on an oil rig, except that this rig is located on the ocean floor. When a US Navy submarine sinks in the vicinity Harris and his crew are caught up in the middle of an international drama. Things get take a turn for the grim when a team of Navy SEALS arrive at the undersea rig and take over...you'll have to watch to see what I mean.
Likes:
1) I like the setting for the story - the deep sea
2) I like the assortment of characters that work on the rig, the intelligent and strong-willed woman engineer that designed the rig
3) The contrasting attitudes of the SEAL teams, especially their team leader
4) Some of the special effects are quite good - for example, the "water tentacle" is great
5) The portrayal of challenges of living in the deep-sea
Dislikes:
1) The special effects used to depict the NTIs (watch and you'll see) are getting to be pretty dated, though they were good when the movie was originally released...that's about it.
2) There's way too much meaningless profanity sprinkled throughout the movie...though some would contend that such language would be essential for accurately portraying oil workers...I wonder.
All in all this is an engaging and interesting bit of inner-space sci-fi. If you enjoy sci-fi you will enjoy this, though it's doubtful that if you take a careful look that it will truly score 5 stars.
This is a solid 4-star offering, no doubt about it. You'll be glad you own your own copy.
Summary of The Abyss (Special Edition)
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 mysterious force that has the power to change the world or destroy it. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michael Biehn co-star.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
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