Sphere

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1998
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Barry Levinson
Genre:	Ocean bound sci-fi
Starring:	Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson , Liev Schreiber, Peter Coyote
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120184/
Tagline:	A thousand feet beneath the sea, the blackest holes are in the mind...
Favourite line:	"Stop calling me Jerry."

Mega budget deep sea sci-fi that is much better than its reputation suggests.

When an attempt is made to prepare the ocean floor of the Pacific for a pipeline to be laid, a huge craft is discovered, half a mile long. Investigations reveal it to be some form of spaceship and, the real kicker, it's covered in over three hundred years worth of coral.
It's not long before a team of experts are sent to the ocean floor to investigate, compiled from the report written on just the very subject of alien contact by Hoffman's Norman Goodman.
The people needed: a mathematician, a bio-scientist, a psychotherapist and...another one that I can't remember.
Thing is, he made it all up. He just wrote the article for the money, never expecting anyone to believe him, let alone for a spacecraft to actually be discovered.
Now, on the ocean floor, the team discover something that seems alive within the craft itself, a huge sphere, unlike anything they have ever seen before. In a freak accident one of their number is killed by a huge swarm of jellyfish and then, in a terrifying twist, the sphere starts talking to them.

It's a great set-up and, with the powerhouse actors employed there is some fine scenery chewing going on, particularly by Hoffman and Jackson.
It's tense throughout, and does leave you guessing virtually all the way as to what is actually going on.
With shades of 2001 (HAL), traces of The Abyss, and more than a slight dose of The X Files, this is a well crafted tale that is spooky and ambitious in scope.
Vaguely confusing at times - I didn't follow everything that was happening - but nonetheless satisfying, this is a big budget picture with a real vision.
Liked it a lot.