Rent Sphere on Amazon Video (paid link) // Buy the book (paid link)
Written by: Michael Crichton (novel), Kurt Wimmer (adaptation), Stephen Hauser and Paul Attanasio (screenplay)
Directed by:Barry Levinson
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Liev Schreiber, Queen Latifah
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
A spaceship is discovered under three hundred years' worth of coral growth at the bottom of the ocean.
Verdict
This isn't bad, it's just so banal; a bunch of tropes wrapped in sci-fi packaging. It never has a sense of purpose. We're introduced to an alien artifact that ends up being a macguffin. I wanted it to have importance or influence. The characters never really do anything to escape, they just get lucky. I like the ending, but that's the high point that's not worth the wait.
Skip it.
Review
The opening credits are quite long. Various academics are flown to the Pacific Ocean. No one knows anything. Is it a plane crash? Something top secret? Turns out it's a spacecraft that the Navy guesses has been on the ocean floor for three-hundred years. It might even have an alien on board.
A team consisting of a biochemist Beth (Sharon Stone), a mathematician Harry (Samuel L. Jackson), astrophysicist Ted (Liev Shreiber), and psychologist Norman (Dustin Hoffman) are designated to explore the craft. They were selected based on a report Norman did years ago. He made up most of the report because it paid well, selecting people he knew, never thinking about it again. He's the reason they're gathered.
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| Leiv Shreiber, Samuel L. Jackson, Dustin Hoffman play Ted, Harry, Norman |
I don't know if it's a budget issue, but I would love to see more context of this ship on the ocean floor and the Navy ships on the ocean. We never get a sense of scale and wonder. We're told this ship is giant, but we never experience that. I want to see Villeneuve's take on this. He's proven he can work wonders with a sci-fi concept such as Arrival and Bladerunner 2049.
Inside the ship the team finds English writing and a human body. The body very well could be three-hundred years old. This seems to be an American space ship. They also find a giant sphere. The question becomes how is the ship there and what is the sphere. Harry reasons that whatever it is, they won't survive. The ships log categorized the sphere as an encounter with an unknown event. That means the team's discovery never made it to the surface. Otherwise, the ship would have known about the sphere.
The sphere has to be alien in origin. When they first discover it, the sphere reflects everything but the team. Later when Norman and Harry interact with it, an eerie reflection of them appears. This is where the movie kicks off. Harry is different, more exuberant. Strange things begin to occur and people start to die. Several jelly fish obscure the vision from the base. A giant squid attacks. With each scene you wonder what's going to happen next. Every scene is strange, and then the sphere makes contact.
The team begins to wonder if Harry is manifesting the things going wrong. Did the sphere imbue some kind of power? They all grow paranoid, fighting against each other and their fears which seem to be manifesting.
Eventually Norman, Harry, and Beth are the only survivors. They try to escape, and while their imaginations thwart them, somehow they break free by doing nothing. They get lucky, that or the movie just creates a path for them to flee so that we get one more sequence. I like the ending. It solves the paradox of how the sphere is an unknown event and yet they discovered it. That's really the only notable thing about this movie.
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