The Sphere (1998)

There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea

There’s a hole, there’s a hole…

There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea

Directed by Barry Levinson

Screenplay by Stephen Hauser&Paul Attanasio

Adaptation by Kurt Wimmer

Based on Sphere by Michael Crichton

With : Dustin Hoffman as Dr. Norman Goodman, a psychologist, horn dog. Sharon Stone as Dr. Elizabeth “Beth” Halperin,marine biologist with a troubled past, loonie variety. Goodman’s former secondary squeeze. Samuel L. Jackson as Dr. Harry Adams, a smartypants mathematician fan of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea who never made it past page 87 where the giant squid appears, that scaredy cat. Liev Schreiber as Dr. Ted Fielding, a whiny astrophysicist. Doomed.Peter Coyote as Capt. Harold C. Barnes, Navy hard ass. Doomed two.

Sort of like the Wildfire team Crichton  cooked up for The Andromeda Strain. You know, to deal with outer space alien space virus. 

At a 1000 feet down, that log at the bottom of the sea is a spaceship! Yeah! What’s more, its been down there for 300 years. How do you conspiracy nuts like that? The psi at 1000ft is 440, or 30 atmospheres. We are told people can hack it if they breath the correct mixtures of gases. I guess.

The scientists are tasked with ascertaining any threat the spaceship might pose to the monied class back in the United States. Outside the submerged (Huge) spaceship the Navy has established a comfy undersea base where for the scientists can bicker and complain in dry pressurized comfort.

We learn the team and their ruling protocol  is the brain child of  Dr. Norman Goodman, the shrink who based his plan on old science fiction stories about outer space alien first contact. I’m bettin’ they were like War of the Worlds and not E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

The four nerd bird scientists enter the spaceship and poke around for clues as  it’s origin. Some discarded MacDonalds wrappers and the mummified body of a murdered crew member tags the ship as American.

”Wait a gosh darn minute”, one of the scientists exclaims,”there weren’t no USA 300 years ago!”

Oh yeah? Well what if the ship got sucked into a black hole under the direction of comic book minds and sent back to earth from some time in the future to blah blah blah… After, and only after, it captured the Big Glowing Yellow Sphere!

What, BGY Sphere?

Oh, din I tell you? The Sphere in the cargo hold.

So, the nerd birds are off to see the Wizard, or whatever is inside the Sphere. One by one and out of view of the others, the Shrink, the Mathwiz , and the Girl Biologist  sneak off into the Sphere like teenagers ducking their parents surveillance to attend a forbidden party. No reason really; they just do it.

We, the viewer, never see the Cracker Jack prize inside the BGY Sphere. Why?  Because the makers of the movie lacked the imagination needed to provide it. The result? They manifest the mental powers Dr. Morbius received from the Krell of

 Altair IV in Forbidden Planet. You remember how that turned out.

I offer a warning borrowed from another bad science fiction movie of the same decade as Sphere, Event Horizon.

Libera te tutemet ex inferis