The Abyss may not be the only James Cameron water-based movie movie.
Yet his expensive thriller has plenty going for it…
Warning this article is spoiler heavy…
He worked on the special effects and directed it for a couple of weeks before being replaced.
Before that, he had busied himself handling model-making and special effects on Roger Corman features.
The Terminator(1984), which he scripted and directed, is the first true James Cameron movie.
This was also his first collaboration with producer Gale Ann Hurd.
Modestly budgeted, the film was a massive hit.
Ad content continues below
Talk about guts.
How do you top a stone-cold classic likeAlien?
Answer: you cant.
In addition, he recognised the potential to turn Sigourney Weaver into a fully fledged female action hero.
This film was also a hit.
This is where the story of the production ofThe Abyssbegins.
At this point, Cameron had two of the all time great science fiction films to his credit.
The Abyssis an underwater mixture of disaster film and science fiction, embedded with an unmistakable Cameron touch.
These also look extremely convincing and impressive.
Disaster strikes the platform and the survivors are left fighting for their lives while trapped on the ocean floor.
All the time, we are left to speculate about what lies at the bottom of the trench.
But lets look more closely at the casting for a moment.
Im going to say that this aspect of the film falls short of perfection.
Its essential, in a film like this, that the crew be as motley as possible.
Consider the characters in a film likeThe Poseidon Adventure.
Camerons previous film,Aliens, is a classic example of getting this exactly right too.
However, thankfully, the lead characters are well-drawn.
The wonderful Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays Buds ex-wife Lindsey, also an engineer.
Shes the kind of gutsy female character that wed hope for in a Cameron picture.
She crosses the line into cast iron bitch territory (her characters own words).
Cameron, of course, is well schooled in the notion that a great character isnt necessarily nice.
Bud is happiest walking around the rig in oil-stained jeans and he comes across as an affable leader.
Lindsey comes across as, well, a little less affable.
Theres another great detail that was in the script but never shot.
He then retrieves it, and this is pivotal when he holds a hydraulic door open later on.
Take this line as an example: We were that close to proving a submersible drilling platform could work.
Clunkers like that crop up from time to time.
Speaking of time, its a long film two hours and 19 minutes for the theatrical cut.
The directors cut stretches to two hours and 51 minutes.
An assessment of the the ensemble cast goes hand-in-hand with a look at the setting they find themselves in.
Nearly all of the film takes place underwater.
The underwater oil rig represents an extremely tough environment, and the film conveys the overall atmosphere extremely well.
One the other hand, theres no room for airs and graces.
They bicker and they clown around; its an underwater family.
Its always great to see frequent Cameron collaborator Michael Biehn too.
Hes on fine form, as always.
The sheer scale of what went on is incredible.
To create the underwater environment, James Cameron made use of an incomplete nuclear reactor housing.
When filled with water, this gave him the largest underwater filming tank ever created.
Halfway though the production, a lightning storm erupted and destroyed the tarpaulin that covered the tank.
This meant they had to switch to night shoots.
At one point, Mastrantonio allegedly walked out of a scene in tears, shouting we are not animals!
Ed Harris is wearing a diving suit, but Mastrantonio is simply holding her breath.
At the end of each take, divers rushed in to give her an oxygen supply.
Although this way of working added up to a gruelling ordeal for the actors, the results are exceptional.
First of all, the sets and the underwater sequences look fantastic and highly authentic.
While the characters were being pushed right up to their breaking points, so were the actors.
The performances here are extremely committed.
The way that dialogue is recorded adds another touch of authenticity to the film.
On the whole, the special effects are excellent.
The sets, that are often partially or fully flooded, look substantial.
Some use is made of miniatures, convincingly so.
Thats not to say thatThe Abyssdoesnt make any use of CGI.
An alien water probe is entirely generated inside a computer.
However, Cameron wasnt satisfied to use the computer graphics to simply add bling to the production.
The aliens themselves are skilfully produced animatronics.
At times, some use is made of miniature versions of the submersibles.
This is one of the few areas where the special effects havent dated all that well.
In other places, typically of that era, blue screening and back projection are used.
Compositing is one area in which CGI was superior to traditional methods right from the beginning.
However, Im being mean to a film that was made in 1989.
Overall, its a superb looking film.
As youd expect from James Cameron, the film doesnt disappoint in terms of action sequences.
Alan Silvestri highlights this with his score.
As I said, the performances from the actors are extremely committed.
There is a moving scene between Bud and Lindsey in which they are stuck in a submarine together.
It involves a tremendous sacrifice, and its obvious that the two are still in love.
I admit that Ive sometimes shed a tear over this section of the film, its that good.
The culmination of the following few scenes is perhaps the highlight of the film.
It doesnt feel trite, because the film has earned an emotional response.
As well as being overly sentimental, this section of the film is slow in execution.
Dont forget that this is a film of bladder-straining running length anyway.
As it stands its a great film, but one with a few problems.
And yet I ask myself, is this the ultimate Cameron film, flawed as it is?
