Sphere (1998)

Although not released at the same time as the big underwater thrillers that battled it out in the late 1980s (those main three titles being Leviathan, DeepStar Six, and The Abyss, of course), but Sphere is nicely in line with those films, and any other underwater thriller that tends to mix horror or sci-fi with our fascination/fear of the deep waters that cover so much of the surface of our planet.

There's an alien spacecraft found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, which understandably requires some investigation. That leads to the standard assembling of a group of smart people who might be able to get to the bottom of things. There's a marine biologist (Beth Halperin, played by Sharon Stone), a psychologist (Norman Goodman, played by Dustin Hoffman), a mathematician (Samuel L. Jackson), an astrophysicist (Ted Fielding, played by Liev Schreiber), and a U.S. Navy Captain (Harold Barnes, played by Peter Coyote). Once at the main site, our assembled team discover a number of strange details, and then a large and impenetrable, perfect sphere. And things are about to get much stranger, putting the group in danger as sanity is worn down and people start to turn on one another.

Michael Crichton has written numerous best-sellers, and his name has been involved with a number of enjoyable blockbuster movies, but he hasn't always been adapted well to the big screen. Sphere is one of the better Crichton adaptations of the past few decades, although it suffers from the fact that the finale probably isn't as satisfying as viewers want it to be. Adapted by Kurt Wimmer, the final screenplay by Stephen Hauser and Paul Attanasio is a decent attempt to mix in some spectacle, thrills and tension, and some solid psychological horror (albeit mild horror). As with so many Crichton tales, there are a number of great ideas, and the script at least executes many of them very well.

Director Barry Levinson also does good work here, making the most of his all-star cast and the chance to provide a number of set-pieces that build and build on the way to the grand finale. The weakness seems to be in the source material, but only in the way that it doesn't feel designed to provide the most obvious type of third act resolution that so many of us are used to from these kinds of movies.

There's nobody here who feels out of place when it comes to the cast. The leads are just superb, all bringing certain qualities to their characters, which is obviously why they were picked. Stone is another strong female here, although one with a vulnerability that ends up being exploited. Hoffman is a bit arrogant with his intelligence, Jackson is more relaxed and open to seeing how things play out, and Schreiber is, well, just fun to have onscreen alongside the others. Coyote is as dependable as ever, and there's even a good little turn from Queen Latifah, playing one of the few other characters to have actual dialogue.

It may not quite do enough to warrant me making a pun like "the only thing you need to fear is Sphere itself", but this is a sorely-neglected blockbuster from the late '90s that tries to weave between entertainingly dumb and entertainingly smart.

8/10

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