Review of Sphere (1998) by Garrett Q — 05 Feb 2008

Sphere is my favorite book by Michael Crichton after his Jurassic Park novels. And while this is a good movie in its own merits, its a horrible adaptation. But when I watch movies based off books, video games, ect, I try to base my opinion on it as an actual movie and not an adaptation of something. I normally enjoy the movie a lot more then.

This one, I HATED at first, but as time went on and I got more in that previous frame of mind that I just mentioned, I liked it a lot more and now it's one of my guilty pleasures.

Only big-named stars in this movie, however they only do sub-par jobs most of the time. Another place this movie looses points is the Giant Squid, which is a major opponent, is never actually seen in the movie. It attacks the base and the characters, but its never visibly seen. Also, I disliked the design of the Sphere (Rippling gold waves).

However, it still manages to be an edge-of-your-seat mindfuck sci-fi movie, that packs a few tense suspenseful moments.

In short, not as good an adaptation as it could have been, nor as good of a movie as it should have been with the talent involved, yet it still manages to be entertaining enough for me to keep re-watching it from time to time and enjoying it most of the time.