Sphere (1998)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is 2017 and I'm still discovering movies from the 90's that are worth a peek. The government has discovered a space craft buried beneath some coral in the Pacific Ocean. The government concludes that this must be an opportunity at alien contact so they grab a team of scientists to make the first contact. Within the crashed vessel they find a shimmering sphere. A few of the scientist decide to enter it and then things get weird.I liked the cast: Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, Liev Schrieber, Queen Latifah et al. The setting was very claustrophobic as they spent the majority of the movie 1000 feet beneath the surface surrounded by water. Once people started being killed by odd creatures it was race to figure out what or who was causing this before they all perished. This movie was really about man's inability to handle alien gifts/technology. That's a lesson we've learned many times over. The movie got a bit confusing towards the end as they tried to solve the mystery of who/what was the cause of the death and destruction. I felt there were a lot of holes in the movie and it left me a bit unfulfilled.

Movie Review: "Sphere" (1998)Based on the 1987 novel by Michael Crichton (1942-2008), director Barry Levinson encounters new grounds with this underwater science-fiction drama, working with collaborated-before actor Dustin Hoffman, who performs undermined and coldly the character of psychologist Dr. Norman Goodman together with character supporting cast members Sharon Stone as zoologist Dr. Beth Halperin, Samuel L. Jackson and Peter Coyote as submarine captain going down as scientific team to the grounds of the deep blue sea, where a mystical golden "Sphere" hidden in a coral-overgrown spaceship, giving anyone, who witnesses its existence the power of foreclosure and putting thoughts into reality due to metaphysical mind-binding.The result of this unless beyond-belief promising motion picture of 80 Million Dollar production value, open for Warner Bros. Studio distribution set for December 1997, which had been pulled to be Mid-February 1998, turns into full-bodied character development by neglecting cinematography as sound design and an hammering score of Elliot Goldenthal, which leads to a mixture of enormous scene potential in character conflicts, which stay behind full-frontal expectations and even the occasional suspense catharsis, when one Samuel L. Jackson's character interpretation of mathematician Dr. Harry Adams, enchanted by the "Sphere", envisions parts of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" in order to endanger remaining crew members outside the underwater station.The editorial by Stu Linder (1931-2006) comes along fairly, but uninspired with its 120plus minutes final cut. The director as the editor treats the adapted screenplay by Kurt Wimmer as psychological claustrophobic chamber play, without risking the scope nor boldness in action of competitive productions as the major focused and character-confronting piece of cinema "The Abyss" (1989) directed by James Cameron and even the more trivial horror-oriented science-fiction movie "Event Horizon" (1997) directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

I found this film very tedious and boring. It lacks surprises. It is not a very good horror film, and a rather chaotic and poorly made science fiction film. Where are the good ideas? The can't be found. The story line has no real surprises, and have we not seen this before? Yes, we have. The great horror of Alien. It's very very similar. The settings are different, but where Alien was scary and groundbreaking, this attempt fails miserably.The film score are always very important in these kind of films. But the music sounds tame and outdated too. I guess the special effects are okay. It is strange that Dustin Hoffman wanted to be in this film. He is miscast along Sharon Stone. Don't bother with this one. Rent Alien one more time instead.

Sphere was a surprise. I wasn't expecting it to be in my top 10 because of such low ratings on IMDb. A lot of people were disappointed by the ending, but for me, that was the best part. It's full of surprises, you can never guess what's coming next! I've already watched it around 10 times, and I'll make sure that my kids do too or I'll disown them. Although I'm pretty sure that not everyone is going to rate it so highly, but my first viewing experience was amazing and maybe that influenced me to give it such a high rating. (I won't disown my kids, I'll be disappointed) I admit the review is biased, but I love this movie so much!