Review of The Abyss (1989) by Stephen S — 20 Dec 2010

Pretty cool. My only problem with this is that it drags on for too long at times. Granted, I was watching the director's cut, which is about 20 mins longer, but still...there are some key scenes here (scenes that couldn't have possibly been deleted) that are just too long.

And honestly, this film has too much of a setup, probably due to the fact that it has too many characters that it tries to create backgrounds for. Truth be told, I didn't care about anyone except Harris' or Mastrantonio's characters.

I liked Michael Biehn in Aliens and The Rock, but he's really annoying here, to my unfortunate surprise. So the setup (which lasts like 50 minutes or so) is almost completely unnecessary in my book.

I would have probably ended up giving this a worse rating if Cameron hadn't made up for this at the end with the panoramic encounter with the aliens (right after that great descent to the deep pressure zone scene where it looks like Brigman is going to die).

The Abyss is worth watching, but like a lot of James Cameron's other lengthy films, prepare for a serious investment of your time.