Sphere Film Review

Here we are once more, toward the end of another month as May comes to a close. Consequently, bringing one more book-film combo into range of our duo post series. Enabling us, the blogger otherwise known as the Scientist Gone Wordy and I, to uncork the next review in parallel. As is our modus operandi, the wordy one will look at a novel well-known enough to later be grabbed up and adapted by Hollywood movie makers, which I will review.

Yet again, we take on a techno-thriller by the famed bestselling author, the late-Michael Crichton. This our third time with the writer who helped define this hybrid genre of stories with his game-changer, “The Andromeda Strain”. Sphere his sixth work of fiction¹, published in 1987. My colleague Rachel will scrutinize said novel that was the source material for Barry Levinson’s 1998 film adaptation. The wordy one’s book review can be found here:

Sphere by Michael Crichton

A brief synopsis of the film: Dr. Norman Goodman has been flown thousands of miles to a distant part of the South Pacific to help with what he thinks is the site of a plane crash. He a psychologist who specializes in post-traumatic stress cases of survivors. However, it’s a ruse. Part of a clandestine government project 1000 feet below the surface where Navy divers have discovered an object half-a-mile long, resting on the ocean floor.

Something 300 years old. Goodman now part of a crack team of scientists deployed into the depths to investigate the astonishing discovery of the strange spacecraft. Finding something even more mind-boggling… a perfect metal sphere. What’s the secret behind the vessel and alien object? Especially when mysterious manifestations begin picking off the crew one by one? Who or what is creating these, and will they live to tell?

[spoiler warning: some key elements of the film could be revealed in this review]

Harry: “Are you a religious man, Norman?”
Norman: “Atheist, but I’m flexible.”

Where to begin with this one. Michael Crichton being an early influence in my teen years, and all. Certainly, I saw Sphere quite awhile ago, having skipped the novel and some bad reviews, and trusted a studio to make at least a half-hearted attempt at giving the perennial chart-topping author, who made a career based on science-fiction and technology, a proper screen translation. Warner Bros. appeared to do that. Assigned the director of Diner, The Natural, Rain Man and others to this for a big budget production… then screwed us.

Having finally read the novel, this is pretty unforgivable. If you just go by the motion picture, you’re going to be pretty disappointed anyway. I know I was that way years ago, but there’s always room for Jell-o…er jellyfish². No doubt, Barry Levinson’s film carried a good bit of box office potential going in. Pretty plain why execs would line up the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson for this. Obviously fueled with what Steven Spielberg pulled off with Jurassic Park a mere five years earlier.

And you can’t blame the film bombing at the box office on the lack of dinosaurs, either.

What you had was a fairly compelling story — using a variation of The Andromeda Strain template — that could have made its sci-fi premise an interesting one for the big screen. What audiences received for their ticket buying pleasure was a cross between The Abyss (the original, not James Cameron’s director’s cut), Forbidden Planet (without the Shakespeare…or even an adorable robot), not to mention the horror aspect that knocked down Danny Boyle’s Sunshine a few notches the next decade over. But hey, I’m not bitter…

“I want a full name for my report. I’m not putting in my report that I lost a crew member on a deep-sat expedition to find an alien named “Jerry.””

To be sure, Michael Crichton shouldn’t altogether be given a free pass here. By this point in his career and somewhat going forward, there was a formula forming by now. Group of knowledgeable scientists…an extraordinary and momentous discovery…something goes wrong…cut to the chase scene. Certainly, for his fans it’s why we as thriller devotees read his titles. Sphere fit the bill, and I’m glad I finally read it. Although, I wouldn’t say it’s in his top-tier. Just wish Sphere, the movie, could have been closer to the book.

Okay, maybe partially.

Facets of the film were kind of fascinating. Production values and SFX (well, until the studio docked $20 million from the budget) were decent for a sci-fi thriller. Along with Levinson’s ability to get good work from notable actors, which this director was known for. Neither was totally to blame for what we got, speaking as a frustrated viewer. The misplaced mix of tones and scenes we ended up with³ did that. I swear, when each big name delivered a evil conniving look, the kind all horror movies seem to exhibit, we’d been hosed.

Can’t condemn the supporting cast, either. Peter Coyote did that ‘Peter Coyote’-thing of his, but well. Had forgotten Liev Schreiber, even Huey Lewis, were in this…maybe that says something. Still, you had to know Queen Latifah’s early film role got her the thankless job, which any Star Trek redshirt or African-American in a horror movie filled: be early fodder for the plot. Jeezus! My daughter, who watched with me, asked, “Why did they kill Latifah, Dad?” I said, “Because Samuel L. Jackson couldn’t do it at this stage of his career.”

Of course, the very next year we got Deep Blue Sea…so what do I know.

I’m being a tad harsh on Sphere, I know. There were moments of absorbing science-fiction represented. The least of which portrayed professional, highly intelligent characters as petty and insecure like the rest of us mortals. That was a side benefit, I’m sure. For all that, time travel, and/or being given the power to manifest your thoughts and fears in the present by advanced alien technology…oops…there I go again citing a better movie⁴…were angles worth exploring on film. Just wish they’d have done it here, or at least better.

“You see? It’s curious. Ted did figure it out – time travel. And when we get back, we gonna tell everyone. How it’s possible, how it’s done, what the dangers are. But then why fifty years in the future when the spacecraft encounters a black hole does the computer call it an ‘unknown entry event’? Why don’t they know? If they don’t know, that means we never told anyone. And if we never told anyone it means we never made it back. Hence we die down here. Just as a matter of deductive logic.”

Parallel Post Series

• The Accidental Tourist
• Apollo 13
• Brokeback Mountain
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s
• – 2014 posts
• – 2013 posts
• – 2012 posts
• – 2011 posts
• – 2010 posts