A spaceship is discovered under three hundred years' worth of coral growth at the bottom of the ocean.A spaceship is discovered under three hundred years' worth of coral growth at the bottom of the ocean.A spaceship is discovered under three hundred years' worth of coral growth at the bottom of the ocean.
- Awards
- 3 nominations total
Featured reviews
The movie follows the book pretty closely. Barry Levinson directs his 2nd Crichton adaptation, following Disclosure. There is a terrific superstar cast. Dustin Hoffman is a legend and has made several great movies with Levinson. Samuel L. Jackson, always fun to watch, is one of the top actors of today. The sexy Sharon Stone here continues to prove how good of an actress she is.
Sphere is a very strange, but entertaining movie. I do reccomend reading the book beforehand, though.
On the seabed in mid-ocean a huge vessel is discovered. A team is dispatched to investigate - and what they find is beyond belief.
Admittedly there were a couple of scenes which I felt missed the intended realism of the film, and occasionally it seemed far too obvious what was going on, but the ending resolved everything beautifully.
I suspect that fans of action films will feel let down by the thought necessary to follow this film, and fans of science fiction may well feel that after the first half hour there is a lack of a traditional sci-fi element. Many people I'm sure will feel that too little is explained, but the point of the film is that it doesn't need to be - the message of the ending is strong enough that we don't need explanation.
I'd particularly recommend this film to anyone who likes psychological thrillers. I was fairly impressed by the action integrated in The Abyss, but Sphere far surpasses it in terms of plot. Most of all, if you like films that simply entertain, this is not for you. It's more about the reactions it causes in you when you follow the story. If you come away from this film unchanged, you've missed the point.
However, I was pleasantly surprised at what a terrific film this actually was. The only downfall to the film, was Dustin Hoffman. With all due respect to one of the best actors ever, he just wasn't suited for this particular role. He was good in it, but just not the right person for the job.
The film begins with Dustin Hoffman flying over the Pacific Ocean in a helicopter, going to a Submarine investigating a plane crash. As a psychologist, he is impatiently waiting to speak to the survivors, and after having been on the sub for over 3 hours, is upset with the Capatain. However, the Captain informs him there was no plane crash, but rather an arrival of some sort not quite 300 years ago, under the Ocean.
Sharon Stone, Leive Shreiber and Samuael L. Jackson join Hoffman as apart of his team, to go beneath the surface to discover and determine what it is exactly that they have found under the Pacific.
With complete intensity and excitement non-stop throughout the entire film, it will leave you feeling a little disturbed at times, and perhaps a bit paranoid, also.
I would advice anyone who does not have a liking to intense sci-fi type films...this is not going to be your cup of tea, but for those enjoy good horror, intensity and a great story line, you will definitely enjoy this flick!
With a cast like this you gotta have high hopes. With a director and a writer to match you deserve something fantastic! And for the most part this delivers. The build up is dark, mysterious and exciting. However once the sphere is found it goes downhill. It still has some really good moments the jellyfish bit is scary and other actions bits are cool. But it gets all muddled up in what the sphere is and who is doing what on the base. It almost manages to hold together until the final half hour then it all just collapses like a flan in a cupboard! It's a shame because for the most part it felt like it was building to something much better, but no.
The cast promised much but didn't deliver. Jackson was great, but I don't think he can be bad even in a bad movie. Hoffman stutters around like he doesn't know what he's doing. I know he's meant to be playing a character that isn't used to heroics, but he doesn't bring anything. Stone is OK but at times looks like she reading her lines off a board. Coyote is OK and Schreiber is understated by his own hammy standards. It's also cool to see Queen Latifah in a role.
Overall this is worth watching as for the majority it's real good. However you notice that the film has got 30 minutes left to go make your excuses and leave, by then you've seen the best it has to offer.
Did you know
- TriviaMany scenes, like Harry (Samuel L. Jackson) and Norman's (Dustin Hoffman's) conversation about making up the ULF report and dealing with Ted (Liev Schreiber), were completely improvised.
- GoofsWhen Jerry first makes contact, he transmits in code : "MY NAME IS JERRY". Later, the code is revealed to have been mistranslated and the message reads: "MY NAME IS HARRY" If the letters H, E, J, and A in the simple letter/number substitution code were wrong, the first message would have read: "MY NEMA IS JERRY". Also, the entire series of conversations they had would have exhibited the same error, yet none did so. (HAPPY would have been JEPPY, ALL = ELL, etc.)
- Quotes
Dr. Harry Adams: We're all gonna die down here.
Norman Goodman: What?
Dr. Harry Adams: You see? It's curious. Ted did figure it out - time travel. And when we get back, we gonna tell everyone. How it's possible, how it's done, what the dangers are. But then why fifty years in the future when the spacecraft encounters a black hole does the computer call it an 'unknown entry event'? Why don't they know? If they don't know, that means we never told anyone. And if we never told anyone it means we never made it back. Hence we die down here. Just as a matter of deductive logic.
- Crazy creditsThe opening credits are cast over an invisible sphere.
- Alternate versionsSPOILER ALERT: An alternate television edit has been shown with a simplified and more ambiguous ending that follows the shooting script; Harry warns them that the authorities are on their way to debrief them, and they will demand answers. The three survivors ready themselves to forget about their mission and the power they possess. Outside, a helicopter sets down. Subsequently, we see the three survivors being interviewed in a debriefing room after decompression, each shot individually against the same background. They react as if they're oblivious to anything going wrong in the Habitat, unaware of anything that happened to Ted, Barnes or the Sphere. The helicopter leaves, and the camera pans down to the ocean, where the Sphere supposedly still remains.
- SoundtracksHorn Concerto No. 3 in E Flat Major, K.447
Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performed by Vienna Mozart Ensemble; Herbert Kraus, Conductor
Courtesy of LaserLight Digital
By arrangement with Source/Q
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $80,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $37,020,277
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $14,433,957
- Feb 15, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $37,020,277
- Runtime2 hours 14 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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