Review of The Abyss (1989) by Patrick E — 15 Dec 2009

The Abyss is a cracking action adventure film from James Cameron that's mainly about a clash between a crazy Navy Seal team and an underwater oil drilling team with some Aliens thrown in for good measure. Impeccably produced throughout, it has exceelnt effects and great acting with the only major downside being that it's slightly too long.

The plot revolves around a crashed US Nuclear submarine and the underwater oil drilling team that are tasked to find the submarine and check for survivors. A Navy Seal team will accompany them but once the submarine is found some team meners witness strange creatures in the water which leads the Seal commander, who is suffering from a case of the deep sea crazies, to assume it's a Russian attack and take over the Oil teams base. Que lots of action as the Oil team struggles to regain control of the base whilst trying to stay alive.

Now there is no denying that this plot has mostly been done before, it's a simple power struggle that leads between two rival teams but it's the brilliant action scenes are impeccable underwater filming to adds up to some great tension and entertainment. The acting is great, especially from Ed Harris and Michael Biehn as the crazy Seal commander. I was slightly disappointed that the Aliens are very much consigned to the background, this is a straight realistic film until the last 20 minutes when the Aliens begin to take centre stage. The main problem teh film has is that it's just too long. At comfortably over 2 hours it's hard to keep your attention for the entire film and sadly The Abyss fails as it loses it's was near the end. Cameron should made the Aliens show up a little sooner and let them have slightly more of a central role to the story.

Despite this The Abyss is still an extremely entertaining film with lots of tension, great effects, plenty of action and entertainment and will definitely leave you satisfied at the end.