Sphere (1998)

Title: Sphere (1998)

Director: Barry Levinson

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Live Schreiber, Queen Latifah

Review:

Some movies just fall flat no matter the amount of talent that’s behind them. That being said, I wouldn’t go as far as calling Sphere a failed attempt. In my opinion Sphere was simply not all that it could have been, still it ends up being an interesting film. Dustin Hoffman himself said that he had some issues in regards to the film, he felt it was not finished, that it needed to be worked on a bit more and I have to say that I agree with him because the film feels like a couple of short films strung together, without smooth transitions from moment to moment. This is probably the reason why they decided to divide the film with title cards that read “The Sphere”, “The Spaceship”, “The Monster” and so on. Speaking of ‘The Monster’ what a disappointment; but more on that later.

Sphere tells the story of how the U.S. Government has found an abandoned spaceship resting deep within the darkest pits of the ocean. They quickly go ahead and gather a team of experts that includes a biologist, a physicist, a mathematician and a psychiatrist to deal with a possible alien encounter. But they don’t know if there’s aliens on the ship, they are simply speculating. Their purpose is to find out what this mysterious spaceship is all about, to take that first step, those first risks. They soon discover that the ship holds an ominous golden sphere inside of it, but what is it? What does it do? Who controls it?

So basically, Sphere attempts to be the kind of science fiction film I love the most: the philosophical science fiction film. This is not a science fiction film with light saber battles or the U.S. military shooting their guns at little green men, no, this film attempts to be something deeper and more thought provoking; which is always a plus for me.  Gotta love it when a film tries to go deeper then your regular dumb flick. Sphere actually wants to talk about important themes that I’m sure were better explored on the Michael Crichton novel on which the film is based on; I never read this book so my review is solely based on the film itself. I say Sphere is an ‘attempt at a deep film’ because I felt it didn’t fully get there in my opinion. It does ask some interesting questions, kind of in the same way that Prometheus (2012) did and I enjoyed that about it. In fact, it can be argued that this film comments on the nature of religion and the illusion behind it all. The use of fear to control the masses; the use of a book to bring our fears to life; I of course enjoyed that about the film.  Sphere starts out pretty cool because it achieves a level of mystery to the sphere that was reminiscent of the mystery revolving around the ‘Monolith’ in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969), unfortunately this film presents us with a promising premise…only to never truly deliver on the spectacle that we as an audience see on the horizon. This is always a letdown: the film that doesn’t deliver the goods.

The problem with this film is that it’s afraid to be what it is supposed to be. It’s like one of those vampire movies that is afraid to use the word ‘vampire’ for fear of sounding cheesy. Sphere is a brainy sci-fi film, but it is also has horror elements to it. Sadly, this is a monster movie that is afraid to embrace its monstrous side. If this is a monster flick, then by all means, show us some monsters! The film uses Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a plot device, a character loves to read this book but is scared of reading the ending because it’s “too scary”. Through the use of the book, the film hints that we might be seeing a huge squid attacking the good guys, we hear the squid, we see it on a computer monitor, but we never truly see the creature. What the film does is tease us to death; it shows us everything but the monster. Can you imagine 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) without the scene where giant squid attacks the Nautilus? One gets the impression that the filmmakers behind Sphere didn’t have the money to show the monster? This wouldn’t surprise me; the film was in hiatus for a while. In fact, while this film was in hiatus, Levinson and Hoffman went off and did a whole other film called Wag the Dog (1997); which by the way was released before Sphere was! This gives you a pretty good idea of how long the making of Sphere was put off for; which of course points towards production problems, creative differences and a slew of other things that can slow a film down.    

A scene from Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Sphere has many similarities with films like Leviathan (1989), Deep Star Six (1989), Event Horizon (1997) and James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989). Let’s count the similarities between Sphere and The Abyss shall we? The film takes place in an underwater rig, with a small crew who end up meeting an alien life form. We get a strong willed woman in a lead role. The crew cannot resurface because there’s a huge storm going on above, a plot device seen in almost all of these underwater monster films. Somebody goes whacko at some point. And basically, Sphere was shot in similar fashion then The Abyss was, with giant water tanks and sets built on them. Extreme similarities can also be found with P.W. Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997), because it also deals with a sphere that augments our fears. Anderson’s style of making films is he steals ideas from his favorite filmmakers and authors and reworks them, then spews them out as if they were his own. He is the Tarantino of science fiction. I’m thinking Anderson read Crichton’s novel and then did his own version of it. Typical Anderson behavior. Sphere came out one year after Event Horizon, it almost feels as if Levinson saw Event Horizon and said let’s do Crichton’s book the right way, let’s make an intelligent film! Which would explain why Sphere puts a lot of its emphasis on philosophical ideas. This is one of  Sphere’s strongest points, the philosophical angle. It asks questions like: Are we ready for the secrets of the universe? Are we ready to know it all? Or are we better off not knowing? Are we just babies in this universe? Are we a race of infants?

What I enjoyed about Event Horizon is that it is a film dealing with these phenomenal cosmic themes, like black holes and traveling to other dimensions through them, but it does it in a highly entertaining way, plus it never forgets that it is a horror movie. It didn’t forget to have some fun with its themes. Sphere needed a little more of that entertainment value seen in Event Horizon to it. Why shy away from showing the monster? I’m willing to bet that this films disappointing box office performance was due to audiences feeling cheated. Audiences were expecting a spectacle or a monster movie (or both) and what they got was Stone, Hoffman and Jackson playing scientists talking about the ultimate knowledge and the secrets of the universe; which is cool if you enjoy philosophical conversations, which I do, but if you don’t you’ll probably think this is a boring film, or that the film cheated you. If you want some spectacle, this movie does little in the way of giving it to you, find it somewhere else. For some reason, opportunities to give a little grandeur to the proceedings are thrown away and shown in a hurry, basically, the film feels like it was rushed; this is something I find surprising coming from such an accomplished director as Levinson, I guess his forte was never science fiction or the production problems ended up bringing the film down. Bottom line is that Sphere had potential, but wasn’t given the time and dedication needed to make a truly special film.

Rating: 3 out of 5 

Salt (2010)

Title: Salt (2010)

Director: Phillip Noyce

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Lieve Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Review:

Recently, in my review for Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead (1995) I mentioned that action films with female leads in them often times fail at the box office. And this is a very common thing that happens, there are many, many examples I could name. I attribute this box office phenomenon to the fact that Hollywood doesn’t put much of an effort in making good action films with female leads in them. It is only when a gifted director steps in and makes a good one that films with females in the lead succeed. Good examples of this are James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films (2003), and most recently Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted (2008). It seems Angelina Jolie is the current poster girl for successful female action leads, and to be honest, I think she’s damn good at it. Case in point: her most recent film Salt.

Salt is the story of American CIA agent Evelyn Salt. When a Russian defector ends up under the custody of the CIA, his confession involves a story about these Russian sleeper agents that were trained to live life in the United States, infiltrate a high position in the government and then proceed to kill a Russian President, giving then Russia a valid excuse to throw a full on attack on the U.S. Other plans include the assassination of the American president as well. The CIA agents listen to the defectors confession only to be shocked by the last part of the story. You see according to the defector the sleeper agents name is Evelyn Salt! Suddenly, the CIA (once Salts employer) is now after her! And so she runs putting all her secret agent know how into trying to escape the clutches of the CIA. Will she ever get down to the truth of things?

So unexpectedly, I ended up really loving this movie. In this movie Angelina Jolie is the perfect female action lead! The actress playing the lead in an action film has got to portray equal parts sexiness, and equal parts toughness, and both are qualities that Angelina Jolie excels at. Salt was a film that was originally written to star Tom Cruise in the role of Salt. Back then the film was going to be called Edwin A. Salt. But, Cruise backed out because reportedly, he thought the character was too similar to what he’d done in his Mission Impossible films. This sounds like total bullcrap to me because he didn’t make Salt, but he went out and did Knight and Day (2010) which strangely enough plays out a lot like Salt. Knight and Day also ended up being about a guy who worked for the government but is now running from them. So it seems to me like Cruise simply had a case of “creative differences” with the creative team behind Salt and decided to go and do a similar film his own way; which apparently meant getting Cameron Diaz to star beside him instead of Angelina Jolie. But whatever! I’m glad Cruise ended up backing out of Salt; I don’t think I would have enjoyed the movie as much. To me Jolie makes the movie. Plus, Knight and Day is the lesser movie of the two. Salt has got gravitas, while Knight and Day feels completely hollow. Audiences also chose Salt over Knight and Day because while Knight and Day flopped, Salt was a huge box office success.

Thematically, the film is extremely subversive; it starts out with Jolie as the CIA agent, working for the U.S. government. She’s good at her job, faithful to her country ‘fighting the good fight’ as they say. Problem comes when said country suddenly doesn’t trust her anymore and she becomes public enemy number one. So her loyalties are no longer to her country, which turns on her at the flip of a switch, but to herself and her survival. This is a theme that’s been popping up a lot in modern films, the idea of cutting ties with old ways of doing things, and starting things anew, with a new perspective, one that doesn’t adhere to tradition. In this film, Evelyn Salt encapsulates that feeling of wanting to cut with everything. It even has a violent streak to it, where this letting go of ones past is a difficult and violent affair. She hates those that have used her and wants nothing to do with them anymore and she’s willing to kick some ass to prove it.

The chase and action sequences are really well achieved, credulity defying as they maybe, they entertain. The film plays out a bit like the action you would see in one of the Bourne films, the Bourne films being the new template by which all modern action films are being made. I tell ya, those Bourne films are really important action films. They redefined how action films are being made today. Even the Bond films look like a Bourne film now. Salt is influenced by that style of Bourne action. The action doesn’t feel too over the top, it feels more realistic then say, the kind of action you would see in an 80’s action film. And speaking of Bond, a while back, Jolie was offered the opportunity to be a Bond girl, an offer which she respectfully declined saying that she’d rather play Bond herself. I guess that’s what she was determined to do in Salt, play the indestructible secret agent. Salt was directed by Phillip Noyce and expert in political intrigue films like Clear and Present Danger (1994) and Patriot Games (1992) so in that sense he was perfect for directing Salt.  

My hats down to Mrs. Jolie, she’s gotten my respect back. I love the kind of action films she’s been making lately. You guys ever seen Wanted? Highly recommend that one as well. Actually I’m kind of late in the Wanted bandwagon since I’m pretty sure practically everyone out there has seen it. Me? I underestimated it and never got around to seeing it until a couple of weeks ago. I got my ass blow out of the seat by it! Looking forward to more high caliber action films from Angelina Jolie, my new favorite action heroine.

Rating: 4 out of 5