Sphere (Keep Case Packaging)

A lot better than I thought it would be...
The OSSA discovers a spacecraft thought to be at least 300 years old at the bottom of the ocean. Immediately following the discovery, they decide to send a team down to the depths of the ocean to study the space craft. The following civilians are recruited: psychologist Dr. Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman), biochemist Dr. Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone), mathematician Dr. Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson), and astrophysicist Dr. Ted Fielding (Liev Schreiber). They are the best of best, smart and logical, and the perfect choice to learn more about the spacecraft. But even their intelligence may not be able to comprehend and understand the strange and terrifying events which start to take place after they discover a strange, golden, and perfect sphere on the craft. Things become worse as they are stranded at the bottom of the ocean without any means of escape. That's when they receive the first transmission...

I had heard from my father and sister that "Sphere" was very good and...

Loved the book and the movie
I think it can be pointless to compare the movie to the book, in all cases, because they're two different pieces of work. The movie is "based' off the book almost always; it isn't an exact representation, and how could it be? Reading a book is an entirely different experience than watching a movie. The book is amazing. So is the movie, in my opinion. I thought the cast and the acting was stellar, and I was always enthralled and caught in suspense. I think the ending is beautiful, not anticlimactic. Why does the ending of a science fiction thriller always have to be a huge climax? This is a unique ending that wraps everything up in a very simple way. This will always be one of my favorite movies.

Regular sci-fi, not just another horror knock-off.
Sphere is one of the few modern science fiction movies that's not really just another horror movie. As an sf fan, I've been disappointed over and over when a movie advertised as sci-fi, about space or ocean exploration, turns out to be another knock-off of "It The Terror From Beyond Space." (That was fine the first time, when the result was Alien).

--Spoiler Alert--

Sphere does take a turn in the Horror direction, but not far enough to disappoint me. The premise is like "Galaxy Of Terror" under the sea. It's about a team of scientists, including Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson, led by top secret Peter Coyote to investigate a spacecraft found under the ocean. They quickly discover it's a spacecraft from Earth's future, apparently temporally displaced (dis-timed?) to Earth's past - but with a clearly alien artifact on board: The sphere. It seems the sphere enables or causes some of the team to manifest their fears in their undersea...

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