From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:43:01 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Martijn van Turnhout Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Sphere (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 23 Mar 1998 01:47:49 GMT Organization: World Access Lines: 72 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6f4f05$eer$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer26.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 890617669 14811 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11642 Keywords: author=van turnhout X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer26.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10783 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1815 --------------------- * = Waardeloos. ** = Matig. *** = Goed. **** = Uitstekend. ***** = Meesterwerk. --------------------- "Sphere" *** Hoofdrollen: Norman Goodman: Dustin Hoffman Beth Halperin: Sharon Stone Harry Adams: Samuel L. Jackson Barnes: Peter Coyote Ted Fielding: Liev Schreiber Geregisseerd door Barry Levinson. Geschreven door Stephan Hauser en Paul Attanasio. Gebaseerd op een boek van Michael Crichton. Speeltijd: 132 minuten. "Sphere" heeft voor elk wat wils. Voor de filmfanaten is er Dustin Hoffman, de mannen (inclusief ondergetekende) kunnen zich vermaken met Sharon Stone en de verlichamelijking van 'cool', Samuel L. Jackson, is ook aanwezig. Ondanks deze 'starpower' heeft de film het niet zo goed gedaan in de Amerikaanse bioscopen en dat is wel jammer, want, afgezien van een paar vage wendingen, is deze film niet slecht. "Sphere" gaat over een buitenaards ruimteschip, dat 300 jaar geleden in de zee gestort is. Er wordt een team van wetenschappers naar toe gestuurd, bestaande uit Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman), Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone), Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson) en Ted Fielding (Liev Schreiber). Na een korte uitleg wordt hun duidelijk gemaakt dat, na al die honderden jaren, het ruimteschip nog steeds een zoem uitzendt. Het zou dus goed kunnen dat de buitenaardse wezens nog leven. Dit team wordt dus naar beneden gestuurd, de zee in. Eenmaal aan boord van het ruimteschip, ontdekken ze dat het niet helemaal buitenaards is. En als dat niet genoeg is, vinden ze ook nog een grote, goudkleurige bol (de sphere dus) van een uitzonderlijke perfectie. Eén van de wetenschappers besluit in de bol te stappen en dan beginnen de problemen pas goed. "Sphere" heeft veel baat bij de vele sterren die in de film rondlopen. Naast Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone en Samuel L. Jackson zien we ook nog Queen Latifah en Peter Coyote in een paar kleine rollen. En dat is maar goed ook, want "Sphere" moet het niet hebben van het verhaal. Alhoewel het begin wel erg goed is, wordt de film, naarmate het einde nadert, steeds meer ongeloofwaardiger. Gelukkig houdt regisseur Barry Levinson er de vaart in. De film is op geen enkel moment saai, wat vooral door Levinson en de mysterieuze wendingen komt. De drie belangrijkste hoofdrolspelers weten gelukkig nog wat van hun platte personages te maken. Ook de special effects zijn de moeite waard, vooral die in het ruimteschip. Trouwens, een film waar Sharon Stone in zit, is altijd de moeite waard. (c) Martijn van Turnhout -- E-mail us at: mailto:janvanturnhout@pi.net 'Filmpje!' is located at http://come.to/filmpje where you can also subscribe to my mailing-list! And you can find my film reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Martijn+van+Turnhout From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:43:04 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Tim Voon Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Sphere (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 3 Apr 1998 06:06:53 GMT Organization: None Lines: 61 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6g1u9t$e98$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer01.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891583613 14632 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11809 Keywords: author=voon X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer01.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10927 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1828 SPHERE 1998 A film review by Timothy Voon Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon 3 :-( :-( :-( for causing me to choke with disbelief Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Liev Schreiber, Peter Coyote Director: Barry Levinson Screenplay: Stephen Hauser and Paul Attanasio based on the novel by Michael Crichton Don't you just hate the element of fake surprise, when actors get together to make a movie about UFOs. This is how much of the movie goes: "Oh My God, a UFO! (Not another one!) ... It's so big! (It's also very phallic)... It's been here 300 years? (Only?)... I thought you said this thing was made of titanium, well look I've just scratched it! (Watch that nail strengthener!) ... I can't see my reflection in the SPHERE! (Get a mirror!) ... I have to get inside it! (Why? It's a big, golden ball!).... Look at these pretty Jelly fish (They sting!) ... I see footprints and a bin labelled 'Trash'! (Environmentally correct) ... And now a flight log... Written in English! WOW! I bet it was made in America (Ya don't say!)... I like to read TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA Why am I getting these nightmares? (You read too much.) Where did the giant squids come from? (Go figure?_ What is the problem here? (I think you are.) This movie begins with a group of scientists investigating a UFO buried on the ocean floor. Like the awful EVENT HORIZON, weird and mysterious phenomena occur on the science base resulting in the deaths of team members trapped there by violent storms raging above them. This in ways is reminiscent of THE ABYSS, a movie far superior in quality and make. SPHERE unfortunately lacks the same intensity of suspense or tension generated by the aforementioned. However, it does come perilously close to being as ridiculous as EVENT HORIZON. Fortunately, it isn't as distasteful or make claims to having gone to hell and back, although the usual mumbo jumbo about Black Holes is used to give the viewer some lame excuse for the ship's presence. There is nothing worse than a poor ending to a movie and this movie does not have a satisfactory conclusion. It leaves the audience annoyed at the need to suspense disbelief, in order to accept what this movie wants them to swallow. I almost choked when it was suggested that the solution to the nightmare was holding hands, counting to three and forgetting anything bad ever happened. God, if only it was so easy to forget, the world would be a better place! There is a place for reality and a place for fantasy, and only so much a person will believe just because you said so. Sorry Michael, but even the dinosaurs are easier to swallow than this big golden ball. Like the awful EVENT HORIZON this movie is best viewed in the vacuum of a black hole. As for the cast, Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson - all very unexciting. Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au Movie Archives http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Tim+Voon Hugues Bouclier’s Movies in Melbourne http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~bouclier/week/movies.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Apr 15 13:35:04 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-nyc.telia.net!nntp.abs.net!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "David Wilcock" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Sphere (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 6 Apr 1998 20:15:36 GMT Organization: None Lines: 68 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gbd58$9oj$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: "David Wilcock" NNTP-Posting-Host: homer03.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891893736 10003 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11851 Keywords: author=wilcock X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer03.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11068 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1847 SPHERE Review by David Wilcock (C)1998 (WARNER BROTHERS) RUNNING TIME: 134 MINUTES (2 HOURS 14 MINUTES) STARRING DUSTIN HOFFMAN, SHARON STONE, SAMUEL L. JACKSON DIRECTED BY BARRY LEVINSON With his successful books and movies, Michael Crichton is doing well. With early successes with Westworld (1973) and Coma (1978), and recent films such as Jurassic Park (1993), his films have been entertaining. However, he seems to taken a wrong turn somewhere with Sphere. This $100 million mess by good director Barry Levison (Disclosure) is dull, long winded, and a huge disappointment. Considering the huge budget, the all star cast, and a story by Crichton, Sphere is majorly disappointing. The film opens with Norman Goodman (Hoffman), a psychologist who thinks he is visiting an airplane crash to console the survivors. However, when he arrives, he his told by supervisor Barnes (Peter Coyote) that he is actually investigating an spacecraft. Along with Goodman is mathematician Harry Adams (Jackson), biologist Beth Halperin (Stone) and Ted Fielding (Liev Schrieber.) They investigate the spaceship, find a massive sphere inside, meet an alien intelligence called Jerry, and basically weird crap happens. Unfortunately, something went wrong along the way with Sphere. The film starts off entertaining enough, but throughout this very long movie, it just gets sillier and sillier. The film jaunts along from scene to scene, never fully explaining what is going on. The actors and directing don't help, either. Hoffman is on autopilot (and almost seems embarrassed) throughout the movie, churning out dull lines, and probably wondering what the hell he is doing in this movie. Stone is useless, displaying no emotion, and fails to convince the audience that she has any feelings for Hoffman. The only person who seems to be having fun in this movie is Jackson, who's funny as the mathematician who slowly goes crazy and entering the sphere. But he's hardly in it, and by the end of the film he is just as dull as Hoffman and Stone. The same goes for Peter Coyote, who hams it up as the officer, but is then killed off halfway through. The director, Barry Levinson, who directed the better Crichton adaptation Disclosure (1994) messes up with the drama and the action. The drama scenes are, quite frankly, boring, and the action scenes suffer from overkill, with Levison throwing the camera all over the place (much like the godawful Speed 2, 1997) The writing doesn't help much, either. Although Crichton is great with plots, he's terrible with dialogue, and practically every line in Sphere is a dud. The speech is too simple, I was hoping it would be a bit more intelligent. Practically every line is just stating the obvious. None of it is smart. Also, where the hell did the budget go? The sphere itself is impressive, and there's a few nice special effect shots, but where the $100 million went is anyone's guess. There's a giant squid attack in the picture, but not once does the audience see the squid, even though the film has a massive budget. I assume the picture was trying to build up tension by not showing the squid, and if handled correctly it probably would. But the whole scene is done badly, and I was just hoping we could see the stupid squid. Finally, the film has no idea what genre to be. Levison can't handle his own plot. It leaps from hokey sci-fi, to horror, and finally The Shining/Event Horizon psychological thriller. And, of course, the film is very much like The Abyss (1988), although in it's defense, Crichton did write Sphere before The Abyss was released (and is far superior to this rubbish.) It's not all that bad though. The plot is all right, there's a few jump scenes (although nothing very scary) and there's the occasionally interesting bit. But overall, Sphere is a big waste of some fine talent, a lot of money, and a potentially good movie. Not really worth seeing. OVERALL RATING= ** OUT OF ***** REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK DAVID WILCOCK david.wilcock@btinternet.com Visit the Wilcock Movie Page! http://wilcockmovie.home.ml.org -OR- http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/9061 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue May 5 14:11:26 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Luke Buckmaster" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Sphere (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 30 Apr 1998 04:19:50 GMT Organization: OzEmail Ltd. Lines: 84 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6i8u56$s9q$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer15.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 893909990 28986 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12229 Keywords: author=buckmaster X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer15.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11451 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1888 REVIEW: Sphere (1998) by Luke Buckmaster 2 and a half stars out of 5 It may surprise some people to know that Berry Levinson, the director who brought us Donnie Brasco and Wag the Dog, has ventured into Stephen Spielberg territory with one of Michael Crichtons less known novels  Sphere. After the opening credits we are hastily introduced to Dr. Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman), a calm psychologist with an intellect and common sense that more than matches the specialists around him. Unfortunately, his credibility isnt always dependable. In the 1980s Norman sold the government a top-secret report explaining what to do if alien life was ever encountered. Also on the report were the names of biochemist Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone), mathematician Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson) and astrophysicist Ted Fielding (Liey Schreiber). The problem is, the report was hastily put together because Norman needed the cash  and borrowed material from famous writers to meet his needs. So when a three hundred year old alien vessel is found buried deep in the ocean, Normans report is followed like a bible. Much to his surprise, all of people he specified (as well as himself) are gathered together and sent to investigate this mysterious ship. But, as would be predicted in this sort of film, when they are stuck hundreds of meters below the surface things start to go wrong. A funny little character called Jerry, based inside the vessels computers, pops up and begins to create chaos for Norman and his crew. But all is not what it seems, and as the film delves into the psychological aspects of its characters, tension begins to rise and things start to hot up. In quality and concept, Sphere is much like last years Event Horizon. They both created interest from the audience, but when they had it they failed to do anything original or engaging with it  and at times its incredibly annoying to be witness a potentially great film resort to using clichi characters and confrontations. Its interesting to note that the vast percentage of Spheres footage has three of the same characters appear on the screen - and whilst this is not necessarily a bad thing, if limited amounts of characters are going to successfully hold the audiences attention they really need to be something special. In this case, they certainly are not  Norman somehow seems to be the most intelligent even though he asks the stupidest questions, the ships commander Barnes Barnes (Peter Coyote) is the diplomatic dork that no body likes, and Samuel L. Jacksons character serves as an excuse to whip up some amusing dialogue. So even though Sphere doesnt produce the most rewarding characters, its great fun to see them all shoved into situations that have more to do with common sense rather than PHDs. Yes  Sphere succeeds as a not-to-be-taken-seriously film, but this is not what Levinson was after. Psychological thriller it should have been  but psychological mediocrity it is. I would love to announce Event Horizon and Sphere as great films  heck, I enjoy so many things about them  but they both get so bogged down in a sea of Weve this his all before material that they hardly become a worthwhile experience. But this isnt the main thing that bothers me  being Sci Fi movies, these two films lost sight of what they should have achieved  rather than thrilling the audience, they merely scare the audience. But on the up side, Sphere is a treat to watch and the special effects are appropriately impressive. I can not, however, forgive it for watering down such a spectacular concept into a pedestrian (and very Hollywood) flavor. As for the three dependable actors  Hoffman, Jackson and Stone  they do look great together, and Sharon especially is certain to arouse male interest with a notably tight singlet/shirt. But at the end of the day, when these three people are resorted to driving a film stuck in neutral, one must wonder why Jim Carey or Mike Myers werent cast as the alien vessels comic reliefs. At least then we could laugh at them, and not the film. As it so happens, the day after I saw Sphere I watched Basic Instinct on TV. And lets just say, Sharon Stones vessels were moving much more appealingly in the later film. -------------------------------------------------------------------- For more of my reviews, visit Movie Zone: http://moviezone.alphalink.com.au bucky@alphalink.com.au -------------------------------------------------------------------- From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 11 14:37:24 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Sphere (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 May 1998 16:38:46 GMT Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 61 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <6j20qm$75c$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 894731926 7340 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12376 Keywords: author=agapow X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11529 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1899 # [film] "Sphere" A Postview, copyright p-m agapow 1998 A mysterious big alien thingie is found at the bottom of the ocean. The inevitable team of experts are taken down to it, left alone and get on each others nerves before dying one by one. "Sphere" may not be the worst Michael Crichton novel ever written, but then I haven't read "Binary" or "Rising Sun". They'd have to try hard to beat the monosyllabic, shaggy-dog story-telling of "Sphere" the novel. So, while a film of "Sphere" shouldn't be good, it can't be worse than its source. But it is, yessiree. Unfortunately, it's not bad enough to be an enjoyable Bad Movie, just bad enough to be tedious. The setup is this: a mile-long (aerodynamically streamlined!) starship is found on the ocean floor with a large golden disco-ball within. Obviously this is a case for an elite alien contact team. Alas, they have to make do with one headed by the narcolepsy inducing Dustin Hoffman. Inevitably, a storm traps them in their seafloor base for the (also inevitable) monster attack. That setup is hardly promising, but things get worse. A military sidekick to the team (Queen Latifah) gets smothered by a large swarm of jellyfish. As Sharon Stone (wittilly cast against type as a genius marine biologist / medico / biochemist / drug-addict) extracts tendrils from the dead Latifah's nostrils, Hoffman honks insincerely: "It must have been terrible. I can't imagine the pain." Even more ludicrously, we are asked to believe that the prelapsarian Hoffman and wonderbuff Stone were lovers. (Stone's faux-dyke cropped hair and bulging eyes makes her looks positively hydrocephalic.) Samuel L Jackson pops up as a brilliant mathematician with attitude who gets knocked out before he can do his badass shtick. Later, the whiny astrophysicist (who is not a big-name actor) gets capped because he is not a big-name actor, and his colleagues activate the station defence system which starts electrical fires every time it is used. Stone decides that the best way to get everyone's attention is to plant explosives everywhere. Slap in the fact they never explain what the sphere actually is or what it's doing on board the starship, the lazy performances, ho-hum direction, plot inanities ... There is one good moment, where a plausible explanation for assembling such a disparate team is revealed. But this is one dull ember in a black hole of a movie. Barry Levison has done much better than this. [*/misfire] and extracting wisdom teeth on the Sid and Nancy scale. "Sphere" Released 1998. Directed by Barry Levinson. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Coyote, Liev Schreiber, Queen Latifah. -- paul-michael agapow (agapow@computer.org), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse "There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and desire."