Sphere feels realistic when characters are explaining what’s actually going on, but that works better in a book than in a movie.īecause expository scenes are somewhat useful, the film is more ambitious than it seems. There’s a casual realism that pervades Crichton’s novels, and that vibe often finds its way into the film adaptations. The film is better than its reputation because it manages to make all these tropes - from time loops to alien nightmare-making tech - somewhat explicable. Its sci-fi concepts weren’t particularly new then or now. The twists in Sphere are neither good nor bad. Instead, the problem is mostly structural. Jackson as a shirtless scientist in Sphere. The plot of the movie isn’t that different from the 1987 book from which it was adapted, and it was generally well-received.

As he wrote, “The last 20 minutes of the film are a slog through circular explanations and speculations that would have capsized lesser actors.”īut the problem with Sphere isn’t that it explains too much, or that its structure is circular. The biggest complaint from Roger Ebert is that the movie ruined its own premise by answering every question. On February 13, 1998, Sphere was released to largely shrugging reviews. If you think of jellyfish, jellyfish will appear and destroy you! Empty your heads! The sphere is basically Zuul from Ghostbusters, and it destroys the drama. The solutions to Sphere’s time loop problems are a bit tedious, but the sphere spawning dangers based on thoughts is just silly. It’s here where Sphere backfired.įor blockbuster sci-fi twists to work, the “logic” of the twist is less important than the likability. Instead, borrowing concepts from Solaris, we learn that strange physical manifestations - including aggressive jellyfish and squid - are the result of the sphere bringing Dr. A few time travel paradoxes later, and everyone becomes convinced that this mission will kill them all.īut the time loop twists aren’t really what’s frustrating about Sphere. But what’s most confusing is that an “unknown event,” apparently a black hole, sent the ship and the large, mysterious sphere within it into the past. At various points, this sphere is thought to be of alien origin or controlled by humans in the distant future. Jackson), and Fielding (Liev Schreiber) - investigating a mysterious spaceship at the bottom of the ocean. Goodman (Dustin Hoffman), Halperin (Sharon Stone), Adams (Samuel L. Sphere stars a group of scientists - Drs.

Sphere michael crichton review