Sphere (1998) – Nostalgia Central

Despite trippy special effects – most memorably a pinwheeling black-and-white nebula – this adaptation of a Michael Crichton science fiction novel created a wearying sense of déjà vu. Once again, Crichton throws together an odd assortment of characters, as in Jurassic Park and its less persuasive Lost World sequel.

Obviously, they will live or die depending on the order of their billing. Most likely to survive is Dustin Hoffman, who, late in his career, seemed to opt for unsuitable action picture roles. Here he is cast as a very famous government consultant psychologist, Dr Norman Goodman, the key player in a hastily assembled team of academics.

Second most likely to make it through to the final fadeout is a closely shorn Sharon Stone, somewhat edgily portraying Beth Halperin, a world-class biochemist with a history of mental problems, who was once a patient (and more) of Doc Goodman.

Also likely to survive is Samuel L. Jackson, sleepwalking his way through most of the film as Harry Adams, a sardonic but brilliant mathematician.

Rounding out the cast list are the expendables: Peter Coyote as the arrogant mission director, Liev Schreiber as astrophysicist Ted Fielding, and Queen Latifah and Marga Gomez as one-dimensional crew members of the submarine habitat.

Norman and the scientists are assembled as Sphere begins, to take part in a top-secret, highly dangerous mission.

While laying a transmission cable in the Pacific Ocean, contractors discovered something weird in the deep, a huge spaceship that seems to have rested on the bottom for something like 300 years (Beth figures out the three century count through a measurement of the coral growth.)

Within the sunken ship – which turns out to be American (from the future, not the past) – a great, mysterious, hypnotic gold-bronze pebbled sphere is discovered: a sort of undersea sentinel.

Finding a dead astronaut with his skull caved in disturbs Beth at least, but she, like the rest, is pretty excited about the shimmering sphere. There is much wandering about in diving suits, and neither Norman nor the superior Harry can stay away from the jumbo disco ball.

Indecipherable codings begin to flash on the habitat’s computers. When they are decoded by the cerebral Harry, it turns out that the sphere’s name is Jerry, who claims he is happy. What, wonders Hoffman’s Norman in an Actors Studio drawl, happens when Jerry gets mad? Which, of course, he/she/it does . . .

Water begins pouring in, people start to die, and those still alive go kind of nuts. A giant squid batters the habitat, and jellyfish and sea snakes up the scariness quotient.

Harry – who devises a way to actually enter the sphere – seems to have ascended to some higher plane and calmly reads 2,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Sphere is boring visually, with endless murky deckways that call to mind the dreary Io mining colony in Outland. Adam Greenberg lovingly photographs the glowing orb designed by Norman Reynolds, but the shiny thing never projects the ancient powers of Stanley Kubrick’s black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With so much money spent on special effects, it’s amazing how little effort seems to have been taken to put the finished film together. The editing is choppy, and there are even title cards such as “The Surface, “The Deep”, and “The Monster” inserted throughout the film.

Critics universally slammed the picture as overly long, overly confusing and unsatisfying.

Dr Norman Goodman
Dustin Hoffman
Barnes
Peter Coyote
Beth Halperin
Sharon Stone
Harry Adams
Samuel L Jackson
Ted Fielding
Live Schreiber

Director
Barry Levinson