The Abyss 2024 Movie Review
We open with ominous title cards explaining that Kiruna’s foundation is subject to “rock bursts” that undermine the city’s stability, and we’re already hitting pause to Wikipedia “rock bursts” to see if that’s what they’re really called, or if it’s just Netflix with another shitty foreign-language-to-English translation. Turns out, “rock bursts” are a totally legit phenomenon that differentiates mining-related geologic activity from naturally occurring earthquakes – and now we can move on. Some teens are partying in a wooded area, and one of them wanders off to make water. He passes through a fence with a warning sign reading RIFT ZONE, and while whizzing into a crevasse, he spots a couple of friends who suddenly disappear. Weird. And then, before you know it, he disappears too, as if EATEN by the EARTH. Egads, I say. Egads!
Now we meet Frigga (Tuva Novotny), who’s the head of safety for the mining operation. What are they mining? Ore. What kind of ore? I don’t know, does it matter? Stop asking me these questions, I’m trying to summarize the damn movie! Frigga’s a no-nonsense personality and a lifer in Kiruna, a small town where the mine employs nearly everybody. Her father worked for the mine and now she does too. It’s that kind of place. Every so often, the ground beneath Kiruna rumbles, and Frigga checks her phone to see where it registers on the Richter scale. She gets a call – it’s Dabir (Kardo Razzazi), her boyfriend. He’s just getting off the train. He’s in town early for his visit, surprise, which is nice, because they go back to her place and relieve the sexual tension, but it’s also not nice, because nobody knows he’s going to be there, sitting on the couch in his undies, which makes it awkward when her daughter Mica (Felicia Maxime) and almost-ex-husband Tage (Peter Franzen) arrive to make things really uncomfortable. Poor Dabir.
That’s not the only reason Dabir should’ve stayed in Uppsala. The tremors are more frequent. Dogs in the neighborhood are barking like crazy. Swaths of big ugly bugs scuttle out of the ground. And Frigga and Tage’s teenage son Simon is missing. Frigga’s family squabbles and Dabir tries not to get involved but Tage keeps antagonizing him like a total j-hole. A big shakeroo happens, so Frigga and Tage head to the mine to assess the situation while Mica tries to find her brother and Dabir visits the fire station that offered him a job. Frigga and Tage plop hardhats on their heads and venture into the mine with a couple of potentially expendable characters, because this is the type of movie that needs to drop a rock on somebody eventually. Turns out, this is the big one. Kiruna is about to go down. Frigga orders an evacuation – but what about Simon? Can’t leave without him. Now, how many close shaves will our protagonists endure before they reach safety? Perhaps more importantly, how many times will we yell at the screen because they keep pausing to work through their interpersonal bullshit while the world literally crumbles around them? Seriously. Family therapy can wait, you dips!
It’s quite possible this movie is not entirely stable. The Abyss does its due diligence to the mental health of its characters, who often pause amidst the melee to bicker and quarrel or hug and whisper tender apologies to each other. Thing is, one’s mental health is wholly dependent upon one’s physical survival no matter the situation, and in this particular situation, physical survival isn’t a given, and it’s rather urgent. If you find it plausible that two men would pause in a hospital full of concussed and dismembered people to tussle over an engagement ring, then by all means, don’t be driven crazy by this movie.
If you can get past the banality of these domestic kerfuffles and a spate of contrived hanging-by-a-pinky-finger-over-an-expanse-style situations, you might notice that The Abyss is mostly believable in its portrayal of smallish-scale disaster. Most of the visual effects are practical, no hellish otherworldly creatures leap forth from dark underground expanses and the inevitable squeeze-yer-ass-through-a-tiny-tunnel scene is truly horrifying for us claustrophobes. There are enough close shaves here to make The Rock raise an eyebrow of concern, but the heroics are of this earth and unspectacular, which I found refreshing. I’ve seen far too many movies of this ilk that try to convince us that the laws of physics can be bent into pretzels for the sake of entertainment, but this one foregoes silliness for relative realism – and that goes a long way towards making it palatable.
