Cinema: Water Bomb

THE ABYSS

Directed and Written by James Cameron

Water is not the director's friend. Actors immersed in it do not have many opportunities for sharp repartee. It provides no cover for the villain to sneak up on the hero. It turns action sequences into exercises in slow motion. It is costly to work in and obscures expensive and imaginative special-effects work.

All of this having been made obvious by dozens of subaqueous movies, one has to wonder why James Cameron, whose Aliens and The Terminator were among the smartest and most frugally made recent entertainments, plunged into the $50 million-plus Abyss....

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