Review of The Abyss (1989) by Bill M — 05 Jul 2014
A massively undervalued science fiction masterpiece, The Abyss is an innovative and extraordinarily ambitiously realized piece of epic, visionary cinema from groundbreaking, uber-genius filmmaker James Cameron.
It's great as sci-fi, it's an unbearably tense thriller and a muscular action movie to boot. It has a impossibly psychically realized underwater setting that no movies these days would have the balls, or outright insanity, to try, shot as it was inside a nuclear power plant with giant submerged tanks and ending up being one of the most infamously horrific film shoots ever (see brilliant feature length documentary "Under Pressure" on the dvd or blu ray) also as a side, watch the special edition, a much more fully realized version of the film, including a longer ending that makes things a bit clearer.
The only real flaw of the film is it's often overly ambitious ending, which feels tonally diffrent to the rest of the film and contains some of the only effects in the move that arnt remarkably flawless over quarter of a century on, but is commendable for the scale and imagination of what it attempts regardless, an awesome, powerful movie.
This review of The Abyss (1989) was written by Bill M on 05 Jul 2014.
The Abyss has generally received positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
