The Abyss

What’s the Story?

An American nuclear submarine bristling with atomic warheads encounters the deep-sea equivalent of a UFO and loses all power and contact with the outside world. As Cold-War tensions with the Soviet Union escalate, the US Navy conscripts the civilian oil-rig workers of an experimental underwater drilling platform to mount a deep-sea "rescue" expedition (it turns out to be more ominous than that) to the unresponsive sub, while a hurricane whips up the ocean surface. Things get worse; the platform is itself battered and crippled in an accident, and the commanding SEAL officer (Michael Biehn) becomes mentally unstable under the pressure -- even more so when the luminous, enigmatic, inquisitive UFO aliens return to check out the stressed humans up close.

Is It Any Good?

This huge-scale underwater epic was so highly touted in its production phase that rival Hollywood studios had time to get lookalike (and inferior) marine sci-fi flicks (Deep Star Six and Leviathan, if you had to ask) already in theaters by the time perfectionist director James Cameron released THE ABYSS. Even then, Cameron was less than satisfied, and in DVD and VHS you can find both the original Abyss and a "special edition" that attempted to better blend the alien-first-contact story into the plot. Even so, it mixes like the proverbial oil and water. Cameron's realization of the characters' high-tech, deep-sea survival ordeal is so fascinating (and excruciatingly suspenseful) in its own right that the sci-fi element seems intrusive -- a Close Encounter of the Rather Unnecessary Kind, even with all the orchestral crescendos and awesome visuals.

Younger viewers who can even tolerate the likes of Jar Jar Binks will be more accepting of the aliens. James Cameron later dispensed with the UFO stuff to offer a vivid documentary nature feature Aliens of the Deep.