Sphère

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.

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.

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!

Excellent! I went into the film thinking it would be bad, since that is what I had heard from someone before watching it.

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!

This is the rarest of action films - one that engages your intellect not just your senses.

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.