Gazing Back

So here we arrive at where James Cameron gives away his sentimentality and the fuzzy teddy bear hiding beneath his human skin. I mentioned in both my Terminator review and my Aliens review that those movies were the grim torments of the movie gods, but in the most deliriously invigorating way possible, like being hit in the face with a Monet. You may be bruised and bleeding by the end of either of those films, but you'll be ready for round two. None of the films we'll be watching in the next week will be anything like those in terms of tone. They'll all be airier and poppier and while of course I do not prefer one style over the other, I do think that James Cameron, at least initially, had a better grasp of the dark and grim. I like feeling like I'm trapped in brightly colored bubble gum as much as the next guy, but I'm sad that Cameron was never able to exercise the same amount of control over tone and deliver a film that leaves me feeling something distinctive, whether it be the rape-victim shakes or polka-dotted fervor (although crazy housewives the world over will argue with me on Titanic).

Like all of Cameron's films, I've seen The Abyss before, but for this viewing I opted for the Director's Cut, seeing as this retrospective is a celebration of James Cameron as a director and based on some kind words my brother had for this version.

The Abyss takes place in an underwater oil drilling rig that looks like it could be a summer getaway for Victor Von Doom. There, blue-collar worker Virgil (Ed Harris) and his estranged wife Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) are asked to aid a group of navy seals in finding a missing nuclear submarine. Before long they encounter strange, brightly colored creatures zipping around adorably and casually causing adorable mass pandemonium. Evil military man Coffey (Michael Biehn) wants to nuke them, but the compassionate protagonists want to try and make contact with the strange creatures. Paranoia ensues for the viewer does not know: are the creatures benevolent, or are they as devious as they seem?

If you're thinking to yourself "man, that sounds an awful lot like Close Encounters of the Third Kind", then grab a Medal of Honor from the basket. I know that the originality of a story is almost trivial, but damn it, it's like making a movie about the life of a magazine mogul and his disk sled told through flashback and called Citizen Blaine or something. Spielberg kind of staked out this territory in '77 and made a movie that anyone would be hard-pressed to top. I can't decide if James Cameron's decision to put a paper cut-out of Ed Harris in front of Richard Dreyfuss and repackage it as a different film makes him very ballsy or just stupid, but The Abyss has at least one huge thing on its side: it is maddeningly suspenseful.

Really, as much as I bitch about them being exactly the same movie, the similarities are nominal. Close Encounters had a smaller thematic scope (and was more successful for it), while The Abyss is a bit more genre-oriented. And would you look at that! Genre-oriented. Just the sort of thing I like. The Abyss is largely a locked-door thriller with underwater aliens serving more as a macguffin than an integral part of the narrative. Their presence only serves to aggravate the incredibly tense conflict between the rig workers and the military dudes.

And that conflict, so often played out, is given new vitality by Cameron and I have NO idea how. For a 19-year-old I think I'm a pretty observant moviegoer, but I remain absolutely perplexed by this unusually potent thriller for the second time through. Both times I've been driven to the brink of insanity by this film's tense conflicts and both times I've emerged from the other side without my usual look of smug triumph.

Perhaps it's the underwater setting and the very real, very prevalent fear of drowning that, strangely, few films ever exploit. Drowning is #2 on my list of fears, a list that features two items: 1) Dragons and 2) Drowning. But I don't think that one thing can account for the outrageous effectiveness of this film, and it's time to give the other players their due. Despite being nearly three hours, The Abyss is as immaculately paced as any of Cameron's films, using its extra running time for great effect, even managing to keep my pulse up through its roughly 40-minute denouement. The actors, in particular Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, create very sympathetic and real characters, full of life and passion with a clear, but largely unspoken, love and mutual admiration. If James Cameron has never fully received credit for his ability to pull the very best out of his actors, it hasn't been for lack of my chamioning. I wouldn't say it's the best role of Ed Harris' career, for there are so, so many great performances in his career, but it's the best thing I've ever seen Mastrantonio do, by far, even if her filmography is significantly more limited.

And would you believe me if I told you that James Cameron finally found a use for Michael Biehn? Yes, as the jittery, violent and totally illogical SEAL commander sitting around and whittling on his forearm, Michael Biehn has finally found a role that matches his facial features. It's as natural as anything I could fathom Biehn doing; he would probably have a similar reaction if the waiter told him they didn't serve Pepsi products.

Although Coffey's character doesn't make much sense to me. He seems to have the deep sea cabin fever they talk about even before he arrives on the platform, most likely because he's played by Michael "I sleep in an electric chair" Biehn, and his evil plan is to nuke the creatures because "there's no way of warning the surface"? There are so many undocumented plants and animals on Earth not because they're hiding in the bushes or under rocks, but because scientists can't keep up with all of them. If we wanted to document all the creatures in the Amazon rain forest, we'd have to level the trees and wipe them all out all the plants and animals to have enough paper, and then James Cameron would have to make a movie about it, the prick. We have plenty of moral conundrum surrounding the discovery of new creatures without Lt. Tweak trying to nuke anything that can't be found in a K-Mart.

So yeah, Biehn is far more cartoonish and less humanistic than Harris and Mastrantonio, but I can't really pass judgment on his place in the film because the effectiveness of the movie is something that I don't understand AT ALL.

The film's claim to fame is its special effects, specifically the famous water tendril scene, one of the first examples of CGI integrated with live action. One of Cameron's greatest assets as a human being, and the chief reason that I remain wildly, unapologetically excited for Avatar is his ability to always use special effects technology effectively and never overreach the limits of that technology. For 20-year-old CGI it holds up astonishingly well, as do the alien fish monsters and their horrible neon metropolis. It's exactly the sort of thing that you would think of if I said "cutting edge in the late 80s", right after you imagined parachute pants.

I never liked the ending in the theatrical cut. It's one of those movies that makes the viewers feel like they aren't violent, selfish libertines with a stack of bodies that would make John Wayne Gacy look like a ballerina. It reminds me of that little kid who sits on the curb and asks you to sign a petition to end world hunger. I know I love world hunger, but I also know that the poor little guy's heart is in the right place. He doesn't seem to understand why world hunger exists. That was always a footnote in the original film, but dear GOD is it prevalent in the director's cut. We have roughly eight hours of heavy handed message delivery before the merciful end. After watching this movie I ate an entire shipment of Peace Corps brand potato chips out of spite.

So, to recap, we have an exceedingly well-constructed film with great performances and great effects marred by a simplistic message. LET'S GET USED TO IT. There's a lot of that coming up and we'd be wise to brace for impact.

9/10