Director: James Cameron
Starring: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, Leo Burmester, Todd Graff, John Bedford Lloyd, J.C. Quinn, Kimberly Scott

- Reviewed by Tom

This is the third or fourth time I have seen this movie. It's probably one of the best underwater movies I have seen (and probably ever made?).

The story starts out when a sub with nukes is mysteriously sunk near an underwater oil-drilling platform. Since there may be survivors and the Navy is nowhere near, the crew of the drilling platform is told to set out on the rescue mission. The Navy does send down a small sub full of Navy Seal tough-boys along with the almost-divorced wife (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) of the guy who runs the platform (Ed Harris). They come across the aliens (?) that sank the sub, the main Navy guy goes crazy and drops a nuke warhead over the edge of the abyss, and of course they have to find and deactivate it before the thing blows up and wipes out a chunk of ocean.

I'll rate the movie on the following:

    2 slices: Special effects—very special since most are REAL effects!!

    1 slice: Story—not bad, but kind of predictable (kind of like underwater Close Encounters, Alien, and Titanic all mixed together).

    1 slice: Drowning scene (horribly well done!!), breathing the liquid stuff (kinda yucky!), imploding sub cockpit (squish!), crane falling from the surface almost hitting the platform (tense!).

    2 slices: The extra stuff on the bonus DVD (yes, there were 2 DVDs with this!).

Since the extra stuff got 2 slices, I'll explain my reasons. The DVD edition had both versions of the movie, the one that was in the theater, and the director's version that wasn't (there were some interesting extra scenes and probably another 45 minutes added to the movie). There was also a slideshow with photographs, and what appeared to be an on-line book with chapters and everything describing the photos, paintings and drawings for the movie. There was also a 10 minute "making of" documentary, and then a 1 hour documentary which was almost more interesting than the movie itself.

Some very cool facts:

• The oil rig was built as a full-size model inside an abandoned nuclear plant reactor core building and filled with water.

• All the actors did their own stunts and all had to learn to scuba dive.

• The scuba gear used in the movie was fully functional and designed just for the movie.

• The subs were real.

• Ed Harris nearly drowned when the dive with the oxygen tank got tangled in a wire and couldn't reach him.

• Remember the scene with the rat breathing the fluid? THAT WAS REAL!!! There is actually some fluid that exists that can be "breathed" (not for humans yet of course). The rat was actually breathing that stuff in the scene! They used about 5 rats in the movie and none of them were harmed. Amazing! That almost rates a slice by itself!

• James Cameron was underwater for about 12 hours a day (about 50 feet down) and had to decompress for about 50 minutes coming up.

Fascinating documentary! James Cameron really doesn't mess around when building movie sets. Yeah, I kind of lost some respect for him because of the "I'm king of the world!!!" Oscar speech for Titanic, but I won't hesitate to see any of his future movies.

Great set of DVDs—even if you don't see the movie, watch the bonus disc with the documentary.

Oh... The ending of the movie still sucks. The actors even said that!  :-)

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