By Robert Scucci
| Published 34 seconds ago
One of my favorite hobbies is revisiting box office failures to see if they really deserve the hate. 1998’s Sphere, a film I loved as a kid but hadn’t rewatched until recently, is one such title, currently sinking under a 13 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Spending so much time in this territory, where ambitious but doomed sci-fi thrillers get left to rot, I can’t say Sphere deserved that fate.
The movie has issues, and my biggest gripe is the bloated runtime, but if a leaner cut ever surfaced, we would be watching a much stronger thriller that actually lands the suspense it aimed for.
Scientists Surveying A Sunken Spacecraft
Sphere does not waste any time with its initial setup. Psychologist Dr. Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman) is brought in to analyze a spacecraft that’s been submerged in the Pacific Ocean for over 300 years. His earlier report on similar phenomena, written for the Bush Administration using junk science just to buy a house, sets the stage for the mission.
Alongside him, marine biologist Dr. Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone), mathematician Dr. Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson), and astrophysicist Dr. Ted Fielding (Liev Schreiber) are briefed by U.S. Navy Captain Harold Barnes (Peter Coyote). Their assignment is to study the craft and uncover its origin.
Once they encounter a massive golden sphere, chaos follows as crew members die off one by one, unaware of what is killing them until it is too late.
Paranoia Sets In
Earning its spot as a psychological thriller, Sphere thrives when showing how each personality unravels under pressure. What is unclear is who entered the orb and how it manipulates their minds. Harry’s casual response to the lab’s destruction suggests he knows more than he admits, while Norman and Beth scramble for answers.
As body bags pile up, Norman’s communication with what seems like an alien presence raises more questions than answers. With limited resources and fraying nerves, the survivors must solve the mystery or become the next casualties.
Strong Performances, Weak Pacing
As someone who favors a tight 90-minute runtime, I got lost in Sphere because of the downtime between key moments, with exposition that should have been shown instead of told. The set design, performances, and effects are peak 1990s sci-fi, but they are dragged down by stretches of dead air. Samuel L. Jackson’s laid-back delivery against Dustin Hoffman’s tense demeanor provides darkly comic relief, but the film as a whole struggles with momentum.
Sphere is not a great movie, but it is not 13 percent bad either. I would even push back on the 38 percent audience score. A strong film is hidden here, buried by the third act’s sluggish buildup and unsatisfying conclusion. Still, if you are a fan of paranoid sci-fi thrillers, it deserves a spot on your watch list for the qualities critics overlooked.
As of this writing, Sphere is streaming for free on Tubi and Plex.
