The Abyss (1989)

A U.S. submarine has an encounter with an unidentified submerged object and sinks. The government sends a SEALS team to a privately owned underwater drilling platform to use as a base of operations. The owner (Ed Harris) of the platform and his wife (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) suspect the leader (Michael Biehn) is unstable and a danger to everyone. Written and directed by James Cameron (TITANIC). The storyline is inventive (although it owes a lot to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND) and visually the movie is a stunner but it's a pity that Cameron's script comes equipped with stock characters often reciting trite dialogue. Fortunately, he cast two first rate actors in the leads and the movie shows what good actors can do to make hackneyed dialogue believable. Apparently the filming of the movie was horrific and took a psychological and physical toll on actors and crew. Both Harris and Mastrantonio refuse to talk about the movie. Even Cameron said he'd never want to go through anything like that again. Was the result worth it. Maybe! With Leo Burmeister, Todd Graff, Kimberly Scott and John Bedford Lloyd.