A MASSIVE, mysterious spacecraft is discovered at the bottom of the Pacific ocean. Assuming it to be of alien origin, the military flies in top psychologist Dr Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman) and a small team of scientists, to make first contact. Why is a shrink leading this team? It turns out that the army are following to the letter a "bogus" report, written by Goodman years earlier for the Pentagon.

Okay, so far so good. There is real tension as the team, which includes an old flame of Goodman, biochemist Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone), and wise-cracking mathematician Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson), start their investigation of this mystery craft, based in a high-tech, dry station on the seabed, called "the habitat".

However, the film starts going awry when after boarding the super-ship they discover the "sphere" itself - a huge, perfectly spherical golden ball with, er, powerful properties. It appears to be a life form - but not as we know it.

After this first encounter, the film starts moving into a more psychological thriller vein as the power of the orb begins to manifest itself. Glitches start happening to the "habitat" computers, and Harry Adams starts behaving strangely after swimming over to the craft to go "inside" the orb. A message comes from the surface to say that a big storm is passing, making it unsafe to go back up to the top, and we know that we are in for a long ride at the bottom of the deep, deep sea.

The psychodrama aspect of the film - and that's a big part of it - is not always easy to follow and is frankly overcomplicated. Basically, the sphere has the power to bring to life the fantasy or phobia of one of those on board the ship. Since the team of scientists are cooped up in a small habitat, facing something powerful and unknown, phobia and fear seems to be the order of the day. In order to save themselves they have to face their fear. It's all a bit far-fetched, but hey that's sci-fi. All the same, I couldn't get out of my head a Red Dwarf episode which was a very funny send-up of this idea.

Saving graces of Sphere are the lush cinematography and the humour, particularly from Samuel Jackson's smart-arsed character. However, at the end of the day this has B-movie stamped on it. And in the true spirit of old fashioned disaster movies the minor characters are bumped off first. No prizes for guessing who's still standing at the end.