At the beginning of Sphere, psychologist Dustin Hoffman is piloted to a mysterious ocean plane crash. He wonders what's going on, but pilot Huey Lewis isn't forthcoming. By the end of the movie, I felt like Hoffman: I was still wondering what was going on.
And that is why Sphere is a bad movie. A good suspense flick drops hints along the way, and then explains them in the end. But Sphere doesn't do that. It is riddled with clues as to the movie's secret, but in the end, none are explained. In the original Psycho, many critics blasted psychiatrist Simon Oakland's closing speech as being too pat and convenient. But at least it explained what had happened in the movie; after Sphere, I was still left wondering what had happened.
The plot concerns the discovery of a strange spacecraft at the bottom of the Pacific. Scientists Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson are flown in to make contact with any aliens aboard. Inside, they encounter a gigantic golden sphere; the plot then surrounds the deleterious effects their contact with the sphere has on their minds. Expendable crew members get knocked off one by one by a crazy computer named Jerry until Hoffman, the resident psychiatrist, gives Jerry some therapy sessions and discovers the secret of the sphere.
The movie contains poor acting and awful dialogue. Given the talents of the three actors, I feel it's a matter of their being miscast, rather than professional failing on their part; nobody could make this dialogue good. When Stone observes some dust on the spacecraft floor, she suspects they are not alone:
"Somebody's been here. There's footsteps and they ain't ours."
Not only is this sappy, but it's incorrect: she sees footprints, not footsteps. Footsteps are what you hear; footprints are what you see.
Sample these gems when expendable crew member Queen Latifah, as Fletcher, ventures out in her scuba:
"Wow. It's so beautiful down here. So... tranquil."
"Edmunds, come down here. Something... happened to Fletcher."
"She had an unfortunate accident, Harry. She was killed. Jellyfish."
"Jellyfish like this are unheard of. I don't know what this is, but it isn't God's creation."
And after Hoffman's first shrink session with Jerry:
"I wish Jerry wasn't happy. Jerry's been cooped up for 300 years. What happens if Jerry gets mad?"
Here are some of the many unanswered questions in the movie:
When they first try to enter the craft, they're able to chip off pieces of the body with their hammer, despite the fact it's made out of titanium steel. The significance of this is never explained.
The sphere' s surface reflects everything but the crew. This is never explained.
For no given reason, the boat monitoring their activity from the ocean's surface suddenly pulls away, leaving them stranded.
After contacting the sphere, Jackson suddenly loves eggs and hates calamari. Why? (We then see Stone drawing on her pad, showing how "Egg" equals "Sphere." But as a scientist she should know that an egg is an oval, not a sphere.)
Jackson becomes mysteriously enamored with the book "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Hoffman then discovers piles and piles of the book in his ship's cabinets. This is supposed to be a breathtaking, dramatic moment, but falls flat because it is never explained.
An obvious error occurs when Hoffman is decoding a message that reveals the name of the killer. He discovers that it was incorrectly decoded before; every time the number "1" appears, it should not have been decoded as "E," but as "A." But this messes up the rest of the message which begins "My name is ..." Using the film's logic, the message would now read "My nama is..."
The acting mystified me. Why, when the door to the spacecraft and the elevator operate all by themselves, did the cast not act surprised? Often, the characters acted like they did not care what was happening, including when their fellow scientists are dying. Peter Coyote, as the project's commander, is excruciatingly bad. His character never decides who he is. One moment he is mysterious; the next he is disconnected. Only Liev Schreiber is able to insert any humanity into his role; unfortunately, he turns out to be an expendable crew member.
In a film that wins my vote for not making sense most of the time, the ending does not disappoint. Hoffman, Stone and Jackson decide they can overcome the sphere's influence by using a uniquely human power. But why should this necessarily be able to override the power of the sphere? And the sphere's actions at the end are not explained.
I have a hunch that the book, which I did not read, explains most of these non-sequiturs. It seems that when a popular novel is adapted to film these days, a lot of corners are cut in explaining why something is happening.
By the end of Sphere, I was bored out of my mind. When people ask me what the worst movie is that I have ever seen, unfortunately I have to say it's Sphere.
And that is why Sphere is a bad movie. A good suspense flick drops hints along the way, and then explains them in the end. But Sphere doesn't do that. It is riddled with clues as to the movie's secret, but in the end, none are explained. In the original Psycho, many critics blasted psychiatrist Simon Oakland's closing speech as being too pat and convenient. But at least it explained what had happened in the movie; after Sphere, I was still left wondering what had happened.
The plot concerns the discovery of a strange spacecraft at the bottom of the Pacific. Scientists Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson are flown in to make contact with any aliens aboard. Inside, they encounter a gigantic golden sphere; the plot then surrounds the deleterious effects their contact with the sphere has on their minds. Expendable crew members get knocked off one by one by a crazy computer named Jerry until Hoffman, the resident psychiatrist, gives Jerry some therapy sessions and discovers the secret of the sphere.
The movie contains poor acting and awful dialogue. Given the talents of the three actors, I feel it's a matter of their being miscast, rather than professional failing on their part; nobody could make this dialogue good. When Stone observes some dust on the spacecraft floor, she suspects they are not alone:
"Somebody's been here. There's footsteps and they ain't ours."
Not only is this sappy, but it's incorrect: she sees footprints, not footsteps. Footsteps are what you hear; footprints are what you see.
Sample these gems when expendable crew member Queen Latifah, as Fletcher, ventures out in her scuba:
"Wow. It's so beautiful down here. So... tranquil."
"Edmunds, come down here. Something... happened to Fletcher."
"She had an unfortunate accident, Harry. She was killed. Jellyfish."
"Jellyfish like this are unheard of. I don't know what this is, but it isn't God's creation."
And after Hoffman's first shrink session with Jerry:
"I wish Jerry wasn't happy. Jerry's been cooped up for 300 years. What happens if Jerry gets mad?"
Here are some of the many unanswered questions in the movie:
When they first try to enter the craft, they're able to chip off pieces of the body with their hammer, despite the fact it's made out of titanium steel. The significance of this is never explained.
The sphere' s surface reflects everything but the crew. This is never explained.
For no given reason, the boat monitoring their activity from the ocean's surface suddenly pulls away, leaving them stranded.
After contacting the sphere, Jackson suddenly loves eggs and hates calamari. Why? (We then see Stone drawing on her pad, showing how "Egg" equals "Sphere." But as a scientist she should know that an egg is an oval, not a sphere.)
Jackson becomes mysteriously enamored with the book "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Hoffman then discovers piles and piles of the book in his ship's cabinets. This is supposed to be a breathtaking, dramatic moment, but falls flat because it is never explained.
An obvious error occurs when Hoffman is decoding a message that reveals the name of the killer. He discovers that it was incorrectly decoded before; every time the number "1" appears, it should not have been decoded as "E," but as "A." But this messes up the rest of the message which begins "My name is ..." Using the film's logic, the message would now read "My nama is..."
The acting mystified me. Why, when the door to the spacecraft and the elevator operate all by themselves, did the cast not act surprised? Often, the characters acted like they did not care what was happening, including when their fellow scientists are dying. Peter Coyote, as the project's commander, is excruciatingly bad. His character never decides who he is. One moment he is mysterious; the next he is disconnected. Only Liev Schreiber is able to insert any humanity into his role; unfortunately, he turns out to be an expendable crew member.
In a film that wins my vote for not making sense most of the time, the ending does not disappoint. Hoffman, Stone and Jackson decide they can overcome the sphere's influence by using a uniquely human power. But why should this necessarily be able to override the power of the sphere? And the sphere's actions at the end are not explained.
I have a hunch that the book, which I did not read, explains most of these non-sequiturs. It seems that when a popular novel is adapted to film these days, a lot of corners are cut in explaining why something is happening.
By the end of Sphere, I was bored out of my mind. When people ask me what the worst movie is that I have ever seen, unfortunately I have to say it's Sphere.