Sphere **1/2 (out of 5) (1998)

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Coyote, Liev Schreiber

Directed by Barry Levinson

 

The remains of a crashed spaceship, over three centuries old, is found on the ocean floor somewhere in the South Pacific, and a psychologist and his crew of scientists are selected to investigate. On board the ship, they encounter a strange spherical object, and after one of them enters the sphere, strange and not too pleasant things begin happening to them.

A bizarre and ultimately disappointing misfire. This film is beginning to confirm my suspicions that Barry Levinson is an overrated director. Here he combines 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, THE ABYSS, and 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, but could not pull off the one thing that all three of those good films had: a sense of wonderment. Levinson reaches for unimagined heights, and wants to wow the viewer with awe, but falls flat on his face in quixotic fashion with a painfully obvious "villain" and underdeveloped script based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Probably not as bad as it's reputation, but I doubt even the lowest expectations will have you coming away thinking it was a pleasant surprise.

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