The Abyss 1989

[5.8/10] James Cameron is a fine technician. He mounts technically impressive set pieces, which make the unfathomable seem plausible. Sometimes that comes in the form of mechanized conveyances colliding into one another. Sometimes it’s luminous alien creatures making contact with humanity. Sometimes it’s just the notion of breathable water. In terms of extending the possible on screen through technology and invention, his talent is undeniable.

But he remains a substandard storyteller, and that sinks pretty much all of films. The mechanics of various underwater apparatuses or first contact with shining manta ray-type beings doesn’t mean much when you don’t care about the characters threatened or greeted. There’s little in the way of memorable personalities or cause and effect in The Abyss. Just another set of stock characters from Cameron’s roster and a series of “And Then”s leading to the next set piece. It’s enough to where the behind the scenes featurettes on Cameron’s films, the bits that delve into the technical wizardry, are far more interesting than the films themselves.

What’s particularly startling in all of this is that despite spending so much time and effort on those big set pieces and the engineering advancements necessary to make them happen, Cameron isn’t much of a visual stylist here. That’s not to say that The Abyss looks bad. Cameron and director of photography Mikael Salomon do a thoroughly competent job. At times the look feels a little drab and dull, and there’s the occasional odd shot. But most of the time, there’s a workmanlike efficiency to the film’s compositions, capturing the visual information that needs to be captured, but never really rising above that, even in the movie’s most bombastic scenes.

That creates problems for the storytelling, because there’s a lack of tension in a number of those big scenes. It’s tough to believe that Cameron has the stones to kill off any of the major characters (at least among the good guy set). So even when there’s a race against time to save someone from drowning or fight a deranged marine or disarm a nuclear bomb, it’s hard to be on the edge of your seat because nothing in the tone or tenor of the film persuades you to think Cameron might really go through with it.

That can be overcome with effective visual grammar and editing. Giving us real human reactions amid the chaos and creating drama with what is and isn’t shown can help make up for conventions of the genre or blockbuster expectations that say the good guys will win. But the pedestrian cinematography and broad personalities at play prevent that from happening here.

It’s the pathology that afflicts The Abyss (and Cameron’s filmography writ large )most severely -- his major players are more cartoon characters than real people. You never get the sense that Bud or Lindsey or Coffey have an inner life or an existence beyond what’s happening when the camera is rolling. What you see is what you get, and what you get is a bunch of generic archetypes and clichés in lieu of actual depth and personality.

Much of that comes down to the dialogue and performances. The film’s stars are forced to spit out a bunch awkward or thudding lines as best they can, but Cameron’s script would make George Lucas blush with its unconvincing professions of love and the characters unnatural reactions to these events (and that’s before you get to the barely-veiled sexism). None of the actors does a bad job at this exactly, but everything in the film veers toward the over-the-top, resulting in a series of high volume, cartoony moments all over the place that, ironically, negate the emotional impact of the film.

There’s also a lot of plot details and in-universe choices that just seem dumb. Some of it can be ascribed to the poetic license of cinema, but more often than not, it takes the viewer out of a scene or the narrative as a whole. Why does Lindsey assume that the manta ray-like creature she interacted with is intelligent life rather than in line with the intelligence of other sea creatures? Why do these theoretically well-trained professionals decide that the thing to do is touch and even poke these unfamiliar life forms? (Hello Prometheus fans!) Why does Bud wait for Lindsey to fully drown before he starts trying to tow her to safety, rather than the two of them attempting to get as far as they can together before her body gives out?

But the piece de resistance of cinematic stupidity on display here comes when Bud and his compatriots do everything to revive Lindsey after that freezing, suffocating escapade. Defibrillation can’t save her. CPR can’t save her. All the medical equipment on board the underwater rig can’t save her. So what can? Bud slapping her around and yelling at her and...I guess...the power of love?

It’s moronic, and the same goes for the insipid love story that’s at the center of the film. The Abyss never really sets up an obstacle that explains why Bud and Lindsey broke up in the first place. The closest we get is that Lindsey was too much of a “cold hard bitch,” which is, suffice to say, deeply problematic as the wedge in their relationship. Without truly establishing the problems between them, it’s not clear why the pair’s misadventures under the sea solves those problems, rendering their inevitable silver screen reconciliation uninvolving and meaningless.

The Abyss does traffic in some of Cameron’s pet themes. The hard-scrabble working stiffs on an underwater rig are brave and noble, largely in contrast to their villainous military counterparts. The former can see the wonder of discovery under the waves, whereas the latter (and their top brass counterparts) only see threats and problems to be solved with big time weapons. Both the corporate and military functionaires at play are ready, willing, and able to write off the human costs of their choices, no matter how craven it makes them. And those noble good guys who are willing to keep an open mind are rewarded for their camaraderie and curiosity with survival and “new friends.” It’s all rooted in familiar ideas that have popped in Cameron’s filmography from Aliens to Avatar.

Those ideas just don’t have much impact when they’re diluted with overblown performances, an overlong runtime, janky narrative progression, weak dialogue, and merely satisfactory direction. There’s a few surprises in Cameron’s bag of tricks here, and the technical achievement of the images he forges for the screen in 1989 cannot be denied. And yet beyond those behind-the-scenes innovations, The Abyss feels much like the rest of its director’s filmography: technologically impressive but ultimately slight, graceless, and hollow.

Directors Cut:

Two thoughts at the beginning

There is a certain symmetry in the fact that a film that has as its motif the danger of nuclear weapons and radioactive material was shot in a decommissioned nuclear power plant.

Secondly, James Cameron's technical developments (Avatar 2) have ensured, among other things, that probably never again will such a set be constructed for a film that is then completely submerged.

After these two thoughts on the frame of the film, now to the actual recession.

The film is a wild mixture of the crazy ambition of James Cameron, who at the same time tries, and relatively successfully, to imitate Spielberg's way of telling and directing stories.
The result is a grippingly narrated and unbelievable work of art, which caused tension, fascination, curiosity and enthusiasm in me. The individual plots, military operation and the conflict between the military and civilian crew, as well as the science fiction story do not seem disjointed and as if they would cut each other, but intertwine and complement each other.
The CGI, cue moving water, is far from great from today's perspective, but the underwater scenes and overall set design is outstanding. The underwater station looks used, lived in and simply authentic. The film incredibly transmits the feeling of being underwater, simply because the set is underwater, which makes the illusion just not an illusion, but reality.
About the plot I would only say that it has its weaknesses, both logically (diving without a pressure suit) and narratively (ending), but these are more than made up for by the strengths.

I can't say anything about the theatrical version, but I recommend everyone to see the directors cut. It may not be a masterpiece, but it's a super exciting film that you rarely get to see in this way.