Sphere - Die Macht aus dem All

Most times when a novel is made into a film, you can follow the story without having to read the book. Sphere has a very strange and complex story. If you haven't read the book first, the movie will be hard to follow.

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.

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.

I need to start off by saying Sphere ranks as one of my top favorites among Michael Crichton's novels.

As a kid, I vaguely remembered glimpsing Sphere (1998), but for some reason I hadn't (re)watched it until now. I'm convinced that if I had watched the whole thing back then, I'd felt far more nostalgia for it.

The book laid out a quasi 'foolproof' formula for a hit movie: gather a small group of intellectuels, isolate 'em from the outside world, add some mystery and the unknown, and voilá! Sound familiar? Despite this, the filmmakers couldn't quite crack the code for this one.

While the first act showed some promise, later acts felt rushed and ultimately fell apart, failing to capture the impact of the book, especially the end. Perhaps those story changes were as helpful as a screen door on a submarine.

Regarding the casting: Hoffman was a great choice for Norman, and Schreiber was fine as Ted. Well, Jackson is like the 'wildcard' of actors, he can work with anyone and anything, so that's that.

However, whenever Stone was on screen, I couldn't help but wonder who could portray Beth instead of her. In my mind, I envisioned actress like Amy Brenneman from Heat, or rather Kim Dickens from Mercury Rising, or even Radha Mitchell from Pitch Black --someone with a bit of edge, yet still lively and likable. Unlike Stone, who seemed devious from the get-go. While she really excelled in Basic Instinct with such mannerisms, here she seemed miscast.

Visually, some aspects still hold up. Though initially disappointed by certain missing elements, maybe it's for the best.

As for recommendations, it's probably a once-in-a-lifetime watch (even as a devoted Crichton fan, once in total is enough for now).

I rate it a weak 6/10.

PS: I'd recommend opting for the book instead, or for the audiobook (with a sample by Scott Brick, sounds nice).

When I saw the preview for Sphere over and over again, I should've known that something bad was up. The preview had no tension in it at all! At the end, I wanted to shout "Gimmmie an S!" and so on. Undaunted by my doubting self I went to see the movie anyway. I think I should've stayed home and reread the book. The film lacked any tension that being several thousand feet below the Pacific should provide. The title cards placed in the film threw it off balance. It reminded me of "Frasier," but on that show, they work! Dustin Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson were game enough to go along with this soggy mess, and Sharon Stone hasn't made a decent movie since Casino. The usually talented Barry Levinson was out of his element here. The film should've been handled by someone who knew the intricacies of working in a wet for wet environment. Maybe someone like, James Cameron? He would've been a fine choice, but he was too busy making a ship sink. If you want a good underwater adventure from Michael Crichton, read the book.

After reading many users' mixed comments on the movie..i can't help but feel that a majority have underrated the film. True it could have been better, especially in the latter half, but having read the book first, i did not feel it actually falling off midway like the way other viewers have described it. People who have read the novel will acknowledge that the movie does follow the novel fairly closely. Thus comments about Hoffman's role and the ending are unfair, since i feel they are the closest big-screen reproductions of one of Crichton's best works. I feel Stone's character was the role followed the weakest.

Definitely the giant squid thrills are insufficient (note that Crichton devoted a good part of his novel describing encounters with 'the monster'). I guess animation artists were short budgeted...though the film as a whole still is a visual treat...and the atmosphere is rightly captured, with nice music.

Overall, I think the movie is worth watching and is definitely of a much higher caliber than 'The Lost World'. It follows a psychological-cum-sci-fi thriller theme and i feel is better than the similar flick 'Abyss'. As from the novel's point-of-view...it could have been done better though. 8/10 stars!