What happens when you take an Academy Award-winning director, and hand them a reported $80 million budget to tackle an existential underwater sci-fi that’s headlined by a two-time Oscar-winning legend, a Golden Globe-winning star, and one of the most popular actors in the business? Unfortunately, you get Sphere.
Not even the combined might of Barry Levinson, Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson could save the movie from tanking spectacularly at the box office, where it could only rustle up $73 million in ticket sales. Critics were even more unforgiving, with an 11 percent Rotten Tomatoes score worse than anything the characters discover at the bottom of the ocean.
Sphere finds Hoffman’s psychologist drafted in to investigate a purported spacecraft that’s been uncovered on the ocean floor, thanks to a report he wrote recommending how the government would tackle such an event. As hard as the team of scientists tries to find a logical explanation for what they find, but you’ll likely find yourself raising an eyebrow at how quickly it becomes riddled with implausible developments, plot holes, and an over-reliance on exposition.
It’s a star powered sci-fi at the end of the day, though, which has evidently been enough to see Sphere circle back around on streaming. Per FlixPatrol, the gargantuan waste of both talent and potential has come up for air on both Rakuten and iTunes this weekend, even if there are literally a thousand better genre films to choose from on any one of the many platforms competing for your attention and monthly subscription fee.
