The Abyss (1989) 4K Blu-ray Review

Plot: Writer/director James Cameron’s dazzling underwater odyssey was shot entirely inside a flooded abandoned power plant. An undersea mining operation hosts a Navy rescue mission for a sunken nuclear sub, but the routine operation becomes a life-or-death struggle and leads to an otherworldly encounter.

Review: I realize that The Abyss isn’t really an action movie, but it does have some set-pieces which I’ll get to later; it’s such an underappreciated movie that I just feel like doing a review for the new 4K release of it.

Much has been said about the 3 new 4K releases for James Cameron’s True Lies, Aliens and The Abyss. True Lies is arguably the worst culprit as the changes to it are so noticeable that it can be distracting at times. Aliens I thought looked great, but of the 3 films I think The Abyss looks the best. It has been remastered beautifully with all the inky blacks easy to see and Alan Silvestri’s sublime score sounding more majestic than ever. I think it might actually be my favourite score of his as that choral theme for the finale is truly epic.

The film itself is one of James Cameron’s best as far as I’m concerned as I really love the characters and get truly emotionally involved with them and the story. This is my favourite Ed Harris role even though he won’t even discuss the movie. He plays Bud Brigman, a diver who leads a civilian diving team to investigate a crashed submarine. Unfortunately for Bud his ex-wife Lyndsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) is coming along for the ride and the old romantic tensions begin to flare up once again.

Joining their crew is a group of Navy SEALS led by Coffey (Michael Biehn in one of his best roles) who isn’t entirely sane and as the story progresses, he becomes more unhinged. He ends up having a fight with Bud which climaxes in a sub battle which is one of the best scenes of the movie. Biehn is one of the best actors working today and he can go from sympathetic one minute to total lunacy the next with ease.

I love the relationship between Bud and Lyndsey which at first starts out hostile but when they are faced with danger and death they rediscover their love for each other. The performances are flawless with Mastrantonio giving us one of the most convincing drowning scenes ever committed to film and even after all these years I still find it so hard to watch.

The visual effects are wonderfully otherworldly and all hold up, but that should come as no surprise when a legend like Dennis Muren is involved.

As I get older, I notice more themes in movies and James Cameron regularly likes to remind us of humanity’s ability to destroy ourselves and it usually takes a machine or aliens to remind us how fragile life can be. The Abyss also isn’t subtle about the Military Industrial Complex and how they always want to shoot first and ask questions later.

After watching the Special Edition of The Abyss I’ve never been able to sit through the Theatrical Cut again as I just know there’s all that great footage that’s missing and the ending is far more impactful. Not only do we get more cold war era politics, but it offers a warning to humanity that we need to stop being so quick to war. It can be a little preachy, but if a movie is telling us that we need to be better human beings then it’s not really a bad thing, especially these days.

The Abyss comes with several hours worth of special features:

• NEW Deep Dive: A Conversation with James Cameron (HD 32:23)
• NEW The Legacy of The Abyss (HD 24:39)
• Under Pressure: Making The Abyss (SD 59:37)
• Archives (Slideshow)
  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • The Writer/Director and Screenplay
  • Development and the Production Team
  • The Design Team
  • The Storyboarding process
  • Character Development and Casting
  • Costume Design
  • Training for the Production
  • Filming Underwater
  • ROVs and Video in The Abyss
  • Production Chronology
  • The Montana
  • The Benthic Explorer
  • Deepcore 2
  • Flatbed
  • Cab One and Cab Three
  • NTI Scount and Manta
  • Pseudopod
  • Fluid Breathing and the Deep Suit
  • The NTIs
  • The Wave
  • The NTI Ark
  • Editing, Sound and Music
  • Publicity/Advertising/Marketing
  • The Restoration
  • Closing Commentary
  • Acknowledgments and Credits

A lot of the features are archival, but we do get a Conversation with James Cameron as well as a Legacy featurette and an hour long making of called Under Pressure: Making The Abyss. The behind-the-scenes stories of this film are arguably even more interesting than the movie itself as Cameron comes across as quite the taskmaster and it sounds like it was a tough time for everyone involved.

I recently got a new 4K player which is made by Panasonic and apparently one of the best on the market and yet this movie froze twice on it. Why? Why does this keep happening no matter how good my player is? Maybe 4K just isn’t all that great as I’m not exactly blown away by it so far. Sure, the picture and sound are at times impressive, but I’d just like to watch the film without having to take the disc out twice while watching it.

Overall, The Abyss is one of James Cameron’s most underrated features as it has fantastic performances from the entire cast, and it certainly looks and sounds better than ever. There isn’t much in the way of action aside from a fight between Ed Harris and Michael Beihn and the rather awesome sub battle, but I find the film still oozes tension and has an engaging enough story and characters.

If you’ve only ever had the DVD version of the film (or VHS if you’re as old as I am) then this is still worth the upgrade even if it did freeze twice for me.