From director Barry Levinson and Jurrasic Park writer Michael Crichton comes this tale of four scientists and a secret military officer who are sent to examine an alien space craft which landed way down at the bottom of the ocean. Of course, as in every tale, things go terribly wrong, and the biosphere in which they live is attacked repeatedly killing all the bit players in the film.
The sphere in reference to the title is not, however the biosphere in which they live, it's actually a mysterious orb entity found on the spacecraft. None of the four scientists (played by Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Sam Jackson, and Liev Schreiber) can even begin to explain what it is or its origin, but soon after Jackson's character disappears into it, they suspect it can't be good. Jackson re-emerges in an almost comatose state, and upon waking up cannot seems oblivious to his surroundings. Soon, sea creatures begin to attack, and all but the 3 lead characters are left, and together they have to sort out the mess that they are in.
The film is great... for the first half. The story plays out like a book, with titles popping up between scene breaks, just like in a novel. However, that book feel is totally forgotten by the end of the film... which was disappointing for other reasons (but we'll get to that). The submersible drop at the beginning was great, borrowing heavily from Jules Verne, although, oddly enough, the only sea life present on the way down is a solitary jellyfish.
The first hour, upon the exploration of the alien vessel, the discovery of the Sphere, and the deaths of the two technicians, was full of awe and genuine heart-pounding excitement, confusion and mystery. But the film went bad from there, the key moment being the first great speech given by Hoffman's character. The entire speal just broke up the momentum of the film, and it never could recapture the pace that it had before. Not long after that, the threat became silly at the mystery was gone. Anyone in the audience with an average intellegence figured out what was happening long before the characters did, although I suspect the director really didn't want us to know. The excitement dwindled down steadily from the Hoffman speech, until the film became a cheesy head game for 10 minutes and then ultimately into a most conventional "race-against-the-clock" climax (which wasn't much of a climax). The ending, too, was very weak and was the finishing touch on the disappointing film.
As for the actors: Liev Schreiber was great, a true rising star; Sam Jackson is always good, and this was a different role for him, almost child-like; Peter Coyote was competent but didn't stand out; Sharon Stone... whatever happened to strong female characters??; and Dustin Hoffman who mumble so much that half of his dialogue was uninteligable, and he was generally not a good choice for lead actor in this case.
Shpere totally reminded me of last fall's Event Horizon, both having crafty visual effects, an exciting plot, and the type of suspense that you can only get from the "isolated group" storyline. But also they both lost their audience once the cat was out of the bag concerning their mysterious opponent, and just became very pointless films.