Sphere | | Cast : | Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Coyote | | Director : | Barry Levinson | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | February 13, 1998 | | DVD Released Date : | February 08, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | September 05, 2005 | | Summary | Regular sci-fi, not just another horror knock-off. | Content
 | Sphere is one of the few modern science fiction movies that's not really just another horror movie. As an sf fan, I've been disappointed over and over when a movie advertised as sci-fi, about space or ocean exploration, turns out to be another knock-off of "It The Terror From Beyond Space." (That was fine the first time, when the result was Alien).
Sphere does take a turn in the Horror direction, but not far enough to disappoint me. The premise is like "Galaxy Of Terror" under the sea. It's about a team of scientists, including Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson, led by top secret Peter Coyote to investigate a spacecraft found under the ocean. They quickly discover it's a spacecraft from Earth's future, apparently temporally displaced (dis-timed?) to Earth's past - but with a clearly alien artifact on board: The sphere. It seems the sphere enables or causes some of the team to manifest their fears in their undersea base.
However, it remains closer to true sci-fi than pure horror. The ideas have all been done, in classics like Forbidden Planet, where Dr. Morbius manifests the monster from his Id through alien technology, Voyage To The End Of The Universe, Galaxy Of Terror, and even the old pulp story "Time Wants A Skeleton" by Ross Rocklynne, and so on. Here it's all arranged in a well-constructed plot, kept moving with fast action, kept believable by the competent actors. And if you prefer Horror movies like Leviathan, the remake of The Thing, etc., you probably won't be dissapointed either.
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| Rating | | | Date | August 30, 2005 | | Summary | Michael Crichton's "Solaris" - which is like Michael Bay's "The Seventh Seal" | Content
| When we saw "Sphere" in the theaters, my entire party instantly ushered it into our select pantheon of movies so awful that they could evoke a perverse nostalgia many years later. And yet watching it for a second time recently, I was able to forgive its Hollywood clumsiness and embrace it as a genuinely moving science fiction tale.
The unkinking of its twisty plot is one of the pleasures of the film, so I'll skip that. I'll just note that it touches on many of the great themes of Art - forgiveness, faith, responsibility - in an endearingly geeky-but-earnest way. [The ending is wrongly considered disappointing for the same reason that people think that of "The Shining" - it is too bold a departure from genre conventions.] And the high-powered cast - Hoffman, Jackson, Coyote, Schreiber, and the still under-rated Sharon Stone - all give fully committed performances. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 28, 2005 | | Summary | Laughable badness | Content
| Star studded clunker with oodles of promise at the beginning only to turn into trite trash at the end. Why would anyone make a movie this bad? Furthermore,why would Barry Levinson make a movie this bad? I suppose I will be on my way to unlocking at least one of the secrets of Hollywood when I figure that out. This is so awful it probably killed reprint sales of the book for a time.
Just terrible. Made no sense whatsoever, and will insult whatever intelligence you have with its thoughtless, cynical moral, which is somewhere along the lines of "if we could bring to existence whatever we dream, it'd all be ugly and horrible because that's what people are made of." Real deep, huh? |
| Rating | | | Date | June 18, 2005 | | Summary | SPHERE | Content
| There is no doubt that Barry Levinson's 'SPHERE' was recieved painfully by most critics. Personally, I don't think critics canned it just based on what they saw on screen, but because the film had such a great potential and didn't produce. The three big stars give admirable performances in a film which could have used another re-write and assesment of goals/objectives. The plot is convincing, but at the core it's hollow and unsubstancial, it's just to bad that these fabulous actors didn't have more to work with here. The visuals are quite appealing, while some tricky mind games were done well also. The final act is compelling and worth the wait, in a picture that could have been an instant classic with the proper motivation. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 01, 2005 | | Summary | Great Book, Bad movie | Content
| If you like the book like I did, you will HATE this movie. What a terrible adaptation! |
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