Have you seen Sphere? You know, the 1998 film based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name? The one that stars Dustin Hoffman? Not ringing any bells? Don’t worry. That’s what I’m here for. Honestly, the cover of the film may be what jogs your memory, as it’s usually seen floating about Tubi or some other streaming service.

Where do I even begin? I’ve seen this film once before. I knew nothing about it going into that viewing and still seemed to know nothing about it when I was done. So, I thought a re-watch may help me to better understand the film. I was incorrect. If anything, the re-watch made obvious the very large gaping plot hole. Did I hate the movie, though? Absolutely not. It’s honestly not a bad way to kill a weekend afternoon.

Bear with me as I try to explain this bonkers ass plot to you. We’ll talk about it after, okay?

Dustin Hoffman is our main character, Dr. Norman Goodman, a psychologist who occasionally works for the United States government. He’s brought into an operation that he finds rather quickly to be out of his ordinary. He’s told that he was brought to the middle of the ocean to investigate what seems to be an alien ship hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface that has been there for seemingly 300 years. Because, you know how you would bring a psychologist in to investigate that? Anyway, turns out the US government is using a plan that Norman wrote for the first Bush administration for how to handle something like this, should it occur. A plan which he very quickly admits he wrote because of the money offered. And, honestly, I don’t fault him. Because how could he have known they would find an alien ship in the bottom of the ocean? I would have written a report talking out of my ass, too.

The team assembled includes Beth, a marine biologist (played by Sharon Stone), Harry, a mathematician (played by Samuel L. Jackson), and Ted, an astrophysicist (played by Liev Schreiber). Once at the site, they investigate the ship, finding that it is American made and was seemingly from the future and had landed in the past via black hole. There is no crew left. On board, the group finds a large, perfect, reflective sphere, that reflects everything in the room, except for them. Harry makes a note that, since the black hole event is what caused this ship to land when it did, and that black hole event is listed as “Unknown Event” in the computer, that this team he is on never makes it back to tell anybody about what they found. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be listed as an “Unknown Event”.

Smash cut to Harry going into the sphere, and then being found nearly lifeless next to it by Norman. The team then discovers that the sphere can communicate with them through the computer. They receive a message all in numbers that Harry is able to put with letters and decode. The sphere goes by Jerry.

From here on out, more weird things happen. Lots of stuff with sea creatures, of course, as they are still at the bottom of the ocean. People are dying left and right (I should mention that there are several more people at this site than just that team of 4). Only once there are 3 left does Norman realize the error they have made. The sphere isn’t going by Jerry. They have been talking to Harry, transmitted from his mind when he is asleep.

FREEZE.

I cannot go any further until I talk about this whole…..thing. In order for the code mistake to happen, in order for them to mistake “Harry” for “Jerry”, every single message from there on out would not make sense. For goodness sake, the message they receive that reveals the name, by their own mistake, would have read:

“My nema is Jerry” instead of “My name is Harry”

They confused the ‘A’ and the ‘E’ and the ‘H’ and the ‘J’. None of their messages that used those 4 letters would have made sense. Even more, Harry is the one who begins decoding the message and initially talks to “Jerry”. If I am being told later that the messages coming in are from Harry when he is sleeping, how in the hell is he the one translating the messages as they come in the first time? (Somebody correct me on this if I am wrong. Was it a live message he was decoding? Was it a recording? Was he just lying? I need the hardcore Sphere fans to chime in here.) Like, I get that he had to be the one to decode it because he’s the mathematician, but if it’s his messages while he is sleeping, how is he decoding a live message? Does that make sense?

From there we find out that Beth had also gone into the sphere. Norman, being the only one who hasn’t, does in fact go into the sphere. Now we have all 3 people who have this strange power that makes their thoughts and imagination a reality. Due to this, everything becomes confusing. Nobody knows what is real and what is not, except for Norman because (and this is the movies explanation, not mine) he is a psychologist.

All 3 team members make it back to the surface and decide together that the world isn’t ready for this power. So, they use the power to make themselves forget that it all happened and the sphere shoots itself off from under the ocean, going back into outer space.

Okay. Let me take a deep breath.

This film is so weird. And not weird in the fun way. Sphere has some of the weirdest pacing I have ever experienced for a movie. The run time is 2 hours and 14 minutes. This film feels like it’s 30 minutes long while simultaneously feeling like it is 4 hours long. I do not understand. There is so much that is going on, but nothing that feels really flushed out. All good ideas on the surface, but empty underneath.

The comedic beats (if you can even call them that) are thrown in really sporadically and don’t feel well placed. There’s one moment that genuinely makes me laugh, due to Hoffman’s line delivery. When they’re all standing in front of the sphere for the first time, noticing that it is reflecting the room around them, Hoffman’s character Norman says “What worries me is that it’s reflecting everything but us. I hate to be the one non-scientist that picks this up, guys. Know what I mean?”

There’s also a ton of backstory between Norman and Beth that they lightly touch on that involves them having a romantic past, but Beth having some kind of mental episode which they hold over her the whole movie. So, that’s fun…

Honestly, the films weakest points are its writing and editing (too disorienting. Would have worked if the plot was laid out more cohesive). Samuel L. Jackson does a tremendous job on his performance, save for that reaction to eating squid. IYKYK.

Any moment that offered some kind of comic beat was almost surely improvised by Dustin Hoffman. I mainly say that because those moments do not feel like they blend with the rest of the film. I mean, Hoffman’s line about using Rod Serling to help inform the report he wrote? Come on.

All in all, I am not entirely convinced that Sphere isn’t just Event Horizon in a different font.