Sphere 1998 Film Starring Samuel Jackson
Adaptation of the Novel by the Same Name by Michael Crichton
Sep 19, 2009
Dustin Hoffman leads an all start cast in this tense claustrophobic thriller. In a state-of-the-art underwater facility a group of scientists are about to discover that the most dangerous thing a thousand feet under the ocean is one another.
Sphere's Plot and Characters
Out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean a spacecraft has been discovered over a thousand feet down, and the coral growth around it indicates that it has been down there for at least three hundred years. A team including marine biologist Dr. Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone), mathematician Dr. Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson), astrophysicist Dr. Ted Fielding (Liev Schreiber), psychologist Dr. Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman), and a member of the U.S. Navy Captain Harold C. Barnes (Peter Coyote) are sent to an underwater habitat in order to investigate the spacecraft.
During their investigations they discover that as impossible as it seems the spacecraft appears to be American and it has an enormous golden sphere in a cargo hold. They also discover an ‘Unknown’ entry even in the ship’s visual log which suggests the vessel fell into a black hole which sent it back in time.
Ted is initially excited by the prospect that time travel has been proven possible, but the group’s excitement turns into fear when Harry points out that the ship’s computer didn’t recognise that it fell through a black hole. The only reason the computer wouldn’t know what had happened would be if they had never told anyone upon their return, and he concludes that if they never told anyone that time travel was possible through a black hole then they didn’t make it back to the surface alive.
Film Based on Book
The audience’s reaction to Sphere will undoubtedly be based upon whether they have read the book or not. As with the majority of film adaptations, the basic gist of the novel is the same as the film, however, there are always going to be parts of the book which fans would have liked to have seen on the big screen.
The novel was written by the late Michael Crichton (the man behind Jurassic Park and the creator of the television show ER) and is a good take on the world he created. Crichton was a scientist and published many scientific papers and he always writes very complex scientific formulas using simple terminology that anyone can understand. Much of the science seen in the novel is lost for the film which instead chooses to focus a lot of the tension on the growing unease between characters.
The habitat is a perfect setting for Sphere, as the tense claustrophobic environment which serves as the backdrop for the paranoia and unease that gradually settles upon the survivors as the film progresses.
Like space, the brilliance of setting something underwater is that there is nowhere to go, and there is no quick escape. During both the book and the film, there is a powerful typhoon happening on the surface which means the team are effectively trapped on the habitat until the support ships above return.
In the book Harry doesn’t point out the others that he doesn’t believe that any of them will make it back alive until the end, in the film he says it quite early on. That change obviously unnerves the others and unsettles the audience because at that point there is nothing to suggest that they are in any real danger.
Responses will be mixed, those who haven’t read the book will enjoy Sphere more than those who have. The book is better than the film because it is able to explore and explain several things that a film is unable to do. However, Sphere is a creepy and atmospheric film that makes the most of its excellent cast and claustrophobic environment.
7/10
Good adaptation of the novel, and fans of the film should also track down a copy of the book
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