Rating: 
Summary: Director's Cut finally makes the movie great....
Review: Well I guess it's true what they say. Sometimes a director's cut does make a movie better and easy to understand. I like the movie now, but for years I did not care for the theater release of the movie. I can now say with 100% certainty that the Abyss was Jim Cameron's only foray into the same kinds of stories that we would useually see in the more well known films along the lines of the Star Trek/George Lucas/Steven Spielberg type movies. Movies that have a kind of comic book appeal about them.
This was the only time that Jim Cameron did a movie like that, after this, he went back to doing really mindless/brutal action movies or cradboard cut out romance pictures like Titanic, and regretfully just became another over-rated hollywood movie maker.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Movie - Excellent DVD
Review: I couldn't wait for The Abyss Special Edition to be released on DVD. I already have the Special Edition Widescreen released on VHS in 1995 with the 10 minute featurette on the making of The Abyss. But as soon as I bought the DVD - I went home to watch it. You can choose to watch the theatrical version or the Special Edition with 28 minutes of additional footage. The commentary is visable via subtitles in the black bar. Which is great. For anyone who hasn't already seen this movie - it's an action-adventure/sci-fi/romance. Basically it's for everybody.Ed Harris play Bud Brigman, the toolpusher on an underwater drilling platform designed by his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). A US submarine sinks near Cuba & the Navy enlists the help of the workers on the drilling rig in a rescue attempt. Four Navy SEALs are sent down to supervise this mission. Headed by Lt. Coffey, played by Michael Biehn. Too bad that Coffey suffers the effects of HPNS and begins to go a little over the edge. All this and oh yeah, there seem to be some unidentified underwater flying objects. Of course only Lindsey seems to see the & Coffey thinks they're Russian. This movie is full of conflicts, romance, action and adventure & is one of my favorite movies. This DVD is just full of extras that I haven't even fully explored yet. Just a few are a 59 minute documentary on the making of The Abyss as well as a 10 minute featurette. There are stills, cast historys, storyboards and anything else you could ever possibly want to know about this movie. This is a must buy DVD. 20th Century Fox takes it's time and puts out first rate DVD's. The Abyss, Fight Club & Aliens are just a few examples of this. If you do enjoy The Abyss Special Edition - try these others.
Rating: 
Summary: predictable
Review: very lame, just another james cameron girl power movie and not too realistic.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing movie!
Review: This beautifully directed 1989 treasure is a very slow yet engaging classic courtesy of James Cameron. It takes place during the heights of the cold war when an American nuclear submarine crashes and goes down to the ocean floor along with several nuclear submarines near an Oil Rig and the Navy SEALS send a crew of divers down to the ocean to investigate and salvage the wreckage and retrieve the nuclear warheads that are still live but unarmed but they encounter two major problems. One is one of their crew is a traitor and is searching for the nukes to use against America while they also discover while down in the dark depths of the ocean that humanity may not be alone afterall. This is a truly excellent movie and the visuals are amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic vidio and audio
Review: The Abyss: Special Edition on DVD is a showcase for home theatre and DVD. The 5.1 soundtrack is one of the best examples I've heard, if only it were DTS. The spatialization it creates brings out the best in my home theatre setup. From the scenes inside the divesuit hearing only the oxygen tank centering you inside the suit to the fantastic orchestra score. The highs and lows are reproduced perfectly. The vidio is crystal clear and brings out the best in Cameron's vision of life deep under the ocean. 2 discs worth of extras, including some not so interesting games for the PC, it was a nice touch though. Both versions of the film are here, the theatrical release and directors cut. Personaly, they could have left out the theatrical release. The directors cut is the way to see this movie, Cameron had to cut away some inciteful parts of the story to release it, I suppose due to its length. The entire movie is presented in storyboard format here as well, needless to say there are a whole lot of em. There are pictures from the sets and the standard actor bios. The only thing I miss is the directors audio track that I've come to expect in every DVD. They have replaced this with a subtitled version that is in itself very informative and comedic at times, although distracting. The extremely high quality audio and vidio warrant the special edition label in my opinion, the multitude of extras is icing on the cake. A great DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: Epic effects, almost epic story...
Review: James Cameron is a true visionary when it comes to film-making. I have to give the man credit for creating some of the most amazing images in the history of film; however, his hand at dialogue and storyline falls just short of being truly believable. For the heavy, desolate, and terrifying place that is the abyss, Cameron meticulously creates the essence of the unknown that lies far below the ocean's surface. His attention to detail is what enables him to generate such grand places for us to see, hear, and (almost) touch. "The Abyss" takes us to such a region we probably will never experience in our lifetime. The casting is perfect. Ed Harris and Mary E. Mastrantonio, though given quite an unoriginal love story, take a wild character journey through walls of steel to human fragility. The swim back from the submersible was heart-wrenching, and what follows truly shows Cameron's potential as a great writer. However, most of the dialogue does run into (unfortunately) "corny" territory, as does the "We Are the World" ending. The DVD Special Edition comes full of extras: commentary, bios, featurettes, and 28 minutes of extra footage. I, personally, watched the extended version prior to viewing the theatrical. I found that there is much more exposition and emotion in the extended version, which helps Cameron's character development. In the end, I do have to give Cameron credit for making us care about the characters through the trite script bumps. He did it in "Titanic," and he does it here.
Rating:
Summary: Jame's Cameron's best, second only to TITANIC.
Review: James Cameron is one of the most talented directors out there. He takes you into these worlds that you never though would be explored or visually realized. The way he does it is awesome. The Abyss is no exception, and it follows in the footsteps of Aliens, and The Terminator. It is filled with Drama, Action, Special Effects, and some awesome thrills. You feel completely and totally cut off from the world, and you are indulged in the characters that are on screen. The cinematography is great, and the acting is good. If you love sci fi- & action see this film. I highly reccomend this movie for just about anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: False Advertising
Review: The Abyss single disc edition is a cool movie, but the actual movie is not in Dolby 5.0 as Amazon.com or Dolby 5.1 as the DVD jacket would have us believe, but only in Dolby 2.0 (2 channel) English or French. I tried both the theatrical and the special edition cut, same result. Buyer beware.
Rating:
Summary: The Abyss (1989)
Review: Director: James Cameron
Cast: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn.
Running Time: 171 minutes.
Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Amidst the year of the "deep sea adventure", this James Cameron science-fiction epic is much better than the other films of the similar genre released in the same year ("Leviathan" and "Deep Star Six", respectively). While stationed underwater as a standard oil rig crew doing their jobs and anticipating coming home to their families, their captain (Ed Harris) has been recruited and instructed to embark on an intense search-and-rescue mission when a nuclear submarine mysteriously sinks. When attempting to make this rescue, Harris and his team are thrust with the aggressive and disagreeable Mastrantonio, who happens to be Harris's ex-wife in the film. As the two ex-lovers butt heads and ideologies, they soon realize that they have much bigger problems to deal with as a supernatural, alien-like presence confronts their craft. As they locate the nuclear bomb, the rig captain finds himself on a spectacular odyssey thousands of feet below the ocean's surface, where he must contend with a force that has power to change or destory the world. One of the first films to use computer-generated special effects, "The Abyss" is a superb tale with many sincere, powerful messages sprinkled throughout. Top-notch performances from both Harris and Mastrantonio, as well as Michael Biehn as a sneaky, neurotic crew member that plans to sabvotage their rescue efforts. Emotional, witty, and profound. Certainly not as mainstream as some of Cameron's other films ("Terminator 2: Judgement Day" and "Titanic"), but well worth the near 3-hour viewing length.
Rating:
Summary: CGI and weak acting=Bad movie
Review: It was really Cameron who started this trend of doing sci-fi pictures with way too much cgi and terrible acting. This movie was the one that started it all. It's long, badly directed, poorly scripted, and has the most over-kill production designs ever. Can take it's place besides the Matrix films, as work that has largely destroyed science fiction as an artform.
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