Sphere

Rating:
Summary: great movie till the ending came up
Review: i thought this movie was so great until the ending and then it's like all the great suspense and story add up to completely nothing. it was kind of dissapointing. don't buy it, rent it first.

Rating:
Summary: THIS MOVIE IS SOOOOOOO BAD!!!!!!!
Review: OH GOD THIS MOVIE IS SO BAD, I JUST GOT DONE WATCHING IT AND HAD TO WARN OTHERS NOT TO WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!!!

I am the type of person that likes most sci-fi movies, no matter how cheesy. Sphere was one of the few where I found no interesting qualities whatsoever. With a cast like Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson you expect a good movie but how these actors got conned into these roles I will never understand. Their agents should be fired.

The movie appears to have a deadly serious tone yet it is hard to believe the US government is carrying on a super-secret mission regarding an alien spacecraft found at the bottom of the ocean with a "carefully selected" riduculous, unprofessional team of scientists of which the above stars are part of. No military presence for this critical mission, just a bunch of flawed civilian scientific characters who in no way would be let near this scene. Among the really, really lame scenes I remember from the movie:

* Queen Latiffea (?!) at the ocean bottom: "Oooh wow, look at all the pretty jellyfish...they're everywhere....help...they're attacking me...ahhhh".

* Sharon Stone at the ocean bottom: "This is the control center, why did you leave Sharon?". "This is Sharon, we're out of food so I'm checking the spaceship for some...over."

* Ocean floor commander to Dustin Hoffman: "Why didn't you tell me Sharon Stone used to be your therapy patient and she tried to kill herself?...this could jeapordize the mission!" <commentary>: Look you fools, it's called TOP SECRET NATIONAL SECURITY CLEARENCE BACKGROUND CHECK.

The ending was even worse. Guess you can tell I really was unimpressed with this movie. I think I could make a better version myself.

Regards,

JT Bay Area, CA

Rating:
Summary: its just awesome
Review: Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson are just great and this is one of my favorite movies. You gotta watch it.

Rating:
Summary: Michael Crichton's best novel is wasted
Review: Sphere was undoubtedly (in my opinion) Michael Crichton's most suspenseful and imagininative novel. I watched the movie version expecting at least an average movie (because of a lot of recent bad Crichton adaptations) but instead felt very disappointed. This movie is a lot like Event Horizon, but worse and more boring. Sphere is about a group of civilian scientists and military people that investigate a seemingly extraterrestrial spacecraft that has crash landed in the south Pacific 300 years ago. The ship is a more impressive sight than the Event Horizon, but they only bothered showing it as a whole for a couple of scenes. Anyway, inside the ship they find a spherical object that causes a lot of trouble.

While Sphere has the occasional suspense scenes that last for several minutes, there is really no action. There's hint of a giant squid lingering outside the habitat, but they never show the creature unlike in the horror film Deep Rising. I heard Sphere had a 70 million dollar budget. If that's true, where are all the special effects. Granted, the movie has an impressive set, but that's it. The movie also has the problem of making things too obvious. They showed Norman (Dustin Hoffman) enter the sphere 45 minutes into the movie, but in the book that was left to be a surprise toward the end. The film has some more problems like that but I won't explain further. Despite the fact the movie is 2 hours 15 minutes long, it certainly feels very rushed. It seemed like director Barry Levinson was trying to get this movie to end as quickly as possible. The film's best acting performance is definitely Samuel L. Jackson, whom I always thought was perfect for playing the brilliant mathematician. That and the ship's design seem to be the only thing the filmmakers got right.

Rating:
Summary: Really good, I enjoyed "Sphere" alot!
Review: 'Sphere" although it is not "Star Wars", is probably one of my favorite movies. Every time I see it, I find out something about it that I didn't know before. If have seen this movie and did not like it, maybe it was because you thought it was really weird and made no sense. You might enjoy it more if you read the book and then watch the movie again. (Although the book is different in a lot of ways, it will clear up a few of the questions you might have.) I have to admit, if the person that wrote the movie had stuck to the book by Michael Chrichton, they could have made it a better movie. But don't blame the cast, they turned in great performances, and they made the movie great. All together I liked it alot, even thought they could have made it into more of a suspense/thriller the a horror film.

Rating:
Summary: excillent thriller!!!!!
Review: This is one of the coolist thrillers ive ever seen. The story and the suspense will keep you on the edge of your seat. I didn't exspect it to be near this good and if you think its not gonna be good rent it and yoll be surprised. Anyone who loves a good thriller and an edge of your seat story has got to see Sphere.

Rating:
Summary: It is Intellectual Sci-Fi
Review: I thought it was a great Sci-Fi movie. Having been a Michael Crichton fan since 1986, I had read the book long before the genesis of the movie. As anyone who reads his books knows, that his movies & books are very thought provoking. They are not really meant for the lay observer. They are somewhat geared towards those in the scientific fields. This movie lived up to the drama and cerebral exercise I predicted. Underwater physiology, mathematics, space travel, etc. are some of the topics approached. In short, if you understand some of the science involved, you will love it, otherwise, it is a letdown.

Rating:
Summary: What a waste.
Review: Not even the acting of Clemens, Stone and Hoffman could save this film. It was too frustrating to watch even after finding out towards the end what it meant. They might as well have all been stoned which would have made more sense about all those hallucinations.

Rating:
Summary: The wind up, the pitch, steeeeerike!
Review: Nice build up with a few spooky scenes, but the story as done would have fit nicely into a 1 hour Star Trek episode. Three star rating for special effects and acting.

Rating:
Summary: Gold?
Review: Crichton is a masterful story writer, and has rubbed a dab of his style off on me. The movie sphere is not completely terrible, but not amazing. I guess that Hollywood believes if you throw in enough cursing it will make any movie good. But I think, as some of the other viewers do, that they should have stuck more to the book. It is a terrific story that I have read enjoyably several times. But the makers should have spent more time on the film! If the basic plot would have been as inspiring as the book, I wouldn't have minded to sit two more hours for it. It had the basis to become a terrific blockbuster equal to Jurassic Park. But unfortunately it doesn't come close to what I anticipated. The movie is ok for the, "Blow em up, blood and dribble" lovers. But if you want complete satisfaction, READ THE BOOK!