Sphere

"It's not impossible - it's ridiculous." Basically sums up this whole ass movie. 2.8 out of 5. What are we playing at Letterboxd. A sci-fi masterpiece. Sphere is a 1998 sci-fi horror film with an all star cast including Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson. However, the film flopped on release and was slammed by critics and audiences alike. It failed to make a profit in the box office and hasn't developed a cult following. The film was almost guaranteed success with its A-list cast and Oscar winning director Barry Levinson but it just didn't happen, unlike many similar 90s horror films that have gained cult audiences and dedicated fanbases (Event Horizon, The Ninth Gate, The Prophecy, all of which I love). The film is based on a novel by Michael Crichton, who many know as the original writer of Jurassic Park. Crichton's work inspired many film adaptions in the 90s that were all very successful up until this one. After Sphere, only two other Crichton novels were adapted for the big screen, both failures worse than this. The story of Sphere revolves around Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman), a psychologist who is called to an army base in the middle of the ocean that seems to have found a three hundred year old alien spacecraft. The reason Goodman was sent is because he wrote a document that outlined who to bring in if contact is made with extra-terrestrials. He listed himself, mathematician Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson), biologist Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone) and astrophysicist Ted Fielding (Liev Schreiber). Norman reveals to Harry that he wrote this document half-assed and just listed people he knew, to which Harry is annoyed and insists he tells the army commander they are travelling with, Harold Barnes (Peter Coyote), he doesn't. When the team investigate the spacecraft they discover that it is actually an American vessel from the future that entered a black hole. They also discover a sphere in the cargo bay, Norman observes that it reflects everything except them, indicating the Sphere is alive. When the crew return to their underwater base camp the Habitat, Harry becomes fascinated with the sphere, wanting to go inside. He also says "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." Then, the next day, when Harry enters the Sphere, chaos ensues. Sphere features some fantastic atmospheric horror and some genuinely great performances from Jackson, Stone and Hoffman as they turn against each other in their paranoia of who has been in the Sphere. The ending of this film is also great, keeping the viewer thinking of what the Sphere really was and what it could do. Overall Sphere is an incredibly unique and interesting sci-fi film that needs way more love than it has. Its meaning and horror is ahead of its time and is deserving of a cult fanbase. Sphere is definitely a favourite of mine now and is one of the most underrated films of all time.