Sphere
A spaceship is discovered under three hundred years' worth of coral growth at the bottom of the ocean. A team of experts is assembled and taken to the Habitat, a state-of-the-art living environment located near the spacecraft.
10 March 1958, Meadville, Pennsylvania, USA
18 March 1970, Newark, New Jersey, USA
26 October 1954, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
8 August 1937, Los Angeles, California, USA
21 December 1948, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
5 July 1950, New York City, New York, USA
22 September 1921, San Antonio, Texas, USA
4 October 1967, San Francisco, California, USA
10 October 1941, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
August 12, 2003
Let's face facts: Michael Crichton is a hack. He comes up with innovative concepts, but his characters are cardboard cutouts. Given the psychological foundations of the story, that's an egregious flaw, and the ending is absurdly dissatisfying.
June 24, 2006
Three major stars being involved, it all wraps up happily but implausibly.
January 01, 2000
Somewhere out there, maybe there's a small cadre of film-goers who will appreciate Sphere's dubious charms, but I'm not among them.
May 22, 2003
If you want a better sci-fi film go see Dark City. A better Levinson movie? Try Wag the Dog.
May 26, 2006
The central idea for Sphere is an intriguing one, but similar concepts have been much better executed on episodes of Star Trek, which makes one wonder why movie writing is allowed to be so bad.
August 05, 2008
An empty shell.
June 18, 2002
The ending, though emotionally satisfying, collapses under scrutiny. This lack of payoff is a real flaw in a film pitched to a discriminating sci-fi mentality.
February 02, 2004
Word 'pointless' is the one that should be attributed to this whole film, one of the worst to come from Hollywood in past decade and one that would test patience and temper of the audience like few others.
February 08, 2003
For a movie of a novel written by Michael Crichton with such a capable cast, Sphere is quite a disappointment.
February 14, 2001
As the umpteenth entrant in the We-Are-Not-Alone sweepstakes, Sphere feels awfully familiar because it is.
May 14, 2003
Packaged as a smart psychological drama, it gradually dissolves into a badly edited action thriller, albeit one obscured by a cast of top notch talent.
April 12, 2002
Given its situational premise -- outer space goes underwater -- Sphere is filled with visual potential, yet Levinson can't tap it. He's just a whole lot more comfortable trying to tame the human software than the technical hardware.
