The Abyss is one of the more disappointing movies of recent memory. It has a really cool sounding name and a really good premise with some kind of monster out there ready to wreck havoc. It has all of the fundamentals of a good movie but the problem? It’s borrrrrrring! The monster has one of the worst designs since E.T. and there isn’t a sense of danger from the supernatural. All that leaves us with is the human dangers which are not nearly as compelling.

The film starts off with a bunch of people getting wrecked underwater. Bud’s team is sent to the wreckage to check things out and save what they can. The problem is that Bud’s team isn’t trained for this kind of thing. They’re oil drillers, not NAVY seal operators. So a Navy team is sent down with them but they don’t play well with others. Additionally, they seem to be keeping quite a few secrets. At this rate it might be internal strife that destroys everyone.

So back to the main problem, you’re waiting for these mysterious aliens to show up for the whole film. They finally do some stuff at the very end of the movie but that’s about it. They miss around 90% of the adventure and this doesn’t play out like your classic creature feature. The monsters aren’t running around blowing everyone up or shooting energy blasts. They mainly fly around at super speeds and act whimsical. They are clearly not mindless but their impact within the film basically falls into that range.

I was expecting a whole lot more to them so this ended up being pretty underwhelming. The film messed up on the atmosphere and so I would have cut out the supernatural stuff entirely. It’s not like it adds much to the film and if you removed it, then it wouldn’t even be a distraction. Then you can focus on all of the drama that you want. Not a bad proposition right? Then right from the start you have your expectations in check. I don’t think that would suddenly make this a good movie but it wouldn’t be quite so disappointing.

Bud is the main character here and a lot of the film is about the tension he has with his wife Lindsey. The two don’t get along at all anymore but they have to put aside their differences to team up here. It’s a fun enough plot but the romance itself is definitely a weak link. They seriously don’t get along so it’s hard to see that spark reforming. I would have been satisfied if they just became friends again or something.

That said, Lindsey does have a moment where she looks pretty bad considering that she’s supposed to be a genius. At one point she is talking tough to the Navy Seals and trying to rush them which nearly gets her murdered twice. Bud has to hold her back because the guy clearly has a gun and even without it he could easily defeat her. So that’s a case where she really wasn’t thinking ahead. It almost forced Bud into a fight where all of his men would have been murdered as well.

Bud does get his big fight near the end though where he gets to show his stuff. He puts up a good fight although he definitely whiffed on his big surprise attack move. If he had just moved a little faster and gone ahead with the strike then he might have won it all right there. Fortunately his friend was around with the mighty haymaker punch. That guy was definitely handy to have around. In general I would say that the crew was okay, not too many characters to write home about but they weren’t bad or anything.

The villains are a bit more on the one note side. The submarine and the stress make them go crazy so they actually resort to wanting to use a bomb that could blow everyone up. The villain is definitely annoying but his partner isn’t much better since he just watches and yells the whole time. At the end of the day if you’re helping the main villain then you are just as guilty even if you aren’t doing much of anything.

At least it was fun to see the government being rather shady as always. From the start this seemed like it would not be a very good idea with how fast the government was scrambling. Clearly they were holding something back but at the same time they were willing to pay triple for this mission which is incredibly hard to turn down. That’s not money that you are able to easily earn after all and you have to assume that in most cases this would have gone without a hitch. There would have been no conspiracies or aliens. If that had been the case then I suppose I’d be singing a different tune right now.

The film at least embraces the sci-fi angle a bit near the very end of the movie. We have some crazy visuals like out of 2001 with Bud flying around. It’s all rather trippy and the ending had potential there but alas then the film ends. It really should have tried having some of this stuff right out of the gate you know? That would have been way better because I’m always up for an alien film. Just make the alien invaders tough with a good design.

Overall, The Abyss really doesn’t live up to the name. It’s crazy that such a great name would be wasted on this movie. There are so many better names that you could have chosen here and all of them would have been infinitely better. The movie doesn’t make many big mistakes but the fact that it can be boring at times is a huge knock against the film. You never want to be bored even for an instant. The film either should have thrown in some more humor to give me some laughs, cooler creatures that have a lot of screen time, or given us some time outside of the ship. I would have liked to have heard more about the tensions with Russia that’s apparently in the uncut version and you can cut out some of the slower paced scenes here instead.

Overall 4/10