Branded Male

French cops and speedboats

A few weeks ago, I convinced the editor of Menstyle.fr - the online home of French GQ, among other magazines - to let me make a series of videos for the site. The idea was to show different aspects of Paris through the eyes of an English journalist. Here's the first effort, shot by Antoine Jaillard. Hopefully the formula and my presentation skills will improve as we go along:

Will Avatar send Cameron back to The Abyss?

It’s possible to pinpoint the moment when James Cameron turns into a big soft girl. It occurs a quarter of the way through The Abyss, when Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) sees the undersea extraterrestrial for the first time. Instead of the giant man-eating aquatic cockroach we’d all been hoping for, it resembles the kind of pink fluorescent plastic submarine that Barbie would ride around in. From then on, the film descends to even greater depths.

But The Abyss is by no means without merit, which is why it remains one of my favourite James Cameron movies. Certainly, it lacks the guns blazing action of Aliens or the adrenalin-pumping chase sequences of T2, but it has a number of solid scenes. The moment when a storm shears off the umbilical cord tethering the team’s deep sea mining vessel to the surface, for example. Or the chase in mini subs. Or the scene when Bud (Ed Harris) watches his wife drowning before his very eyes. Or, indeed, Ed Harris himself, whose ornery toughness makes Bruce Willis look like a jellyfish.

The Abyss also has a number of early Cameron signatures, particularly the use of quote-ready tough-guy dialogue. It bristles with “touchdown – crowd goes wild”, “keep your pantyhose on” and, of course “let’s rock’n’roll”. (“Let’s rock” crops up in Aliens, too. These phrases are inevitably accompanied by the sound of safety catches being released or hardware being  locked into place).

We'd almost forgotten the peace-and-love ending of The Abyss by the time Cameron fully immersed himself in chick flick material with Titanic – a film only a girlfriend could love. Billy Zane and the iceberg compete for the worst acting prize. And as for the script…when the ship upends and they are hanging by their fingertips from the guardrail, Leo DiCaprio advises Kate Winslet: “Hang on!” As a character in an earlier Cameron movie might have said: “No shit, Sherlock.”

It's too early to judge whether Cameron will don his tougher persona for Avatar. But judging by the trailer, which looks suspiciously eco-friendly, I fear not.