Review: Sphere (1998)

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Sphere

Rating

Director

Barry Levinson

Screenplay

Kurt Wimmer, Stephen Hauser, Paul Attanasio (Novel: Michael Crichton)

Length

2h 14m

Starring

Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Coyote, Live Schreiber, Queen Latifah, Marga Gómez, Huey Lewis

MPAA Rating

PG-13

Basic Plot

A team of scientists is brought together to investigate a mysterious, 300-year-old craft landed deep in the ocean.

Review

Dustin Hoffmaan plays a psychologist, Norman Goodman, whose falsified report to the Bush administration lists the tactics that should be implemented in case of an alien encounter.

Sharon Stone is Beth Halperin, a microbilogist and former patient of Norman’s.

Scientist number three is Harry Adams, a stereotypical Crichton mathematician with a cynical outlook on the pending situation. Rounding out the scientific team is an astrophysicist, Ted Fielding, played by Scream-alumnus Liev Schreiber.

Harold Banes (Peter Coyote) is the intelligence advisor who controls the situation and argues his way through the film. Queen Latifah and Marga Gómez are the two navy officers responsible for the management of the underwater station near the submersed craft.

The film plays like a cross between The Abyss, Contact and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The concept is straight from The Abyss. The visual effects seem like they were borrowed from Contact, while the alien intelligence playing keyboard tag is extremely reminiscent of 2001.

The film plays well for the first hour-and-a-half, but gets drawn out and quite lifeless for the last 45 minutes. The end is sufficient, but unimaginative and the remainder of the plot is extremely predicatble.

Adding to the downfalls is the unavailable chemistry between the leads, Hoffman and Stone. No sparks seem to fly in this relationship and we don’t feel a kinship to either.

Outside of the quality of direction and the acting (sometimes), the banter comedy is appropriate and lively, led by the charisma of Schreiber.

Not the best science fiction I’ve ever seen, but lively enough to sustain interest for two hours.