underwater science fiction stays submergedone of the most unpleasant experiences that can occur in a movie theater is when a cast of fine actors end up in a film that wastes their talents . you keep thinking what they might have accomplished with the time they squandered . psychologist norman goodman ( dustin hoffman ) is called to the middle of the pacific ocean to work with the survivors of a plane crash . when he arrives at the site , he discovers that there is no plane , but rather an enormous spacecraft that has been sitting 1 , 000 feet below the surface for almost 300 years . having written a paper for the bush administration on how to handle first contact , he is chosen to head up the team of scientists investigating the ship . his group as outlined in his report , consists of beth halperin ( sharon stone ) , a biochemist ; harry adams ( samuel l . jackson ) , a mathematician ; and ted fielding ( liev schreiber ) , an astrophysicist . unfortunately it turns out that the writing was a blow-off project for goodman who did it for the money and named his then-colleagues to the team . " after all , " he explains , " who reads government documents ? " lead by harold barnes ( peter coyote ) , a top secret federal operative , the group descends to a mobile undersea headquarters set up next to the alien vessel . once there they stroll over , knock on the door and explore the still-operational ufo . discovering the surprising origin of the ship and the crew finds an astonishing gigantic golden liquid metal sphere . when adams enters the sphere , the weirdness unfolds . a storm rolls in on the surface and the team is forced to remain below just as an unseen presence begins to communicate through their computer . " my name is jerry . i am happy " flashes across the screen . this is unsettling for the psychologist . " what happens if jerry gets mad ? " he asks . barnes is more pragmatic : he needs a last name because he can't put in his report that they made contact with an alien named jerry . then the situation turns bad . deadly beasts appear from nowhere . a gang of jellyfish kills one of the navy personnel . lethal sea snakes attack goodman . a giant squid batters the habitat just as adams is reading " 20 , 000 leagues under the sea " . the suspicious scientists turn against each other . this has all the makings of a first-rate thinking man's science fiction film . however even the finest ingredients don't go very far in the hands of a chief who doesn't seem to care about his product . director barry levinson has churned out a mish-mosh that doesn't engage the audience beyond a few skillful suspense scenes . the first of the film zooms by as the situation and players are introduced without any characterization or justification . it's much like speed-reading a novel and realizing that you missed the nuances . it doesn't get any better when the action scenes begin . while the actors do an adequate job with their limited roles , the people are still flat . oddly they hardly have reactions when deaths occur around them . after adams experiences the interior of the sphere , no one bothers to ask him what happened . their history together is an intriguing plot device but is barely exploited . even goodman and halperin's ill-conceived affair when she was his student is just mentioned in passing . her psychotic tendencies are talked about but never convincing . there's a truism that items shown early in a movie must be used before the ending , but here they are far too obvious . when an emergency mini-sub is explained , you know what's going to happen . the movie affectations are nothing more than distracting . chapter headings that divide the movie have no function . the shaky camera work muddies already perplexing chaos . much of what goes on is confusing and difficult to follow . although some of the disorientation eventually is understandable , a great deal of it isn't . even a science fiction film must be internally consistent . there's too much here that doesn't make sense . are the manifestations real ? the jellyfish kill queen latifa ( in a throw-away role ) and the squid nearly destroys the outpost , but the bites of the fatal snakes have no effect . a scene in the sub suggests that it's illusion , but earlier episodes indicate that it's not . not everything has to be explained to death , but there are major questions that the film never answers . where the ship came from is clarified , but how it ended up on the ocean floor in 1709 is merely alluded to . even the enigmatic sphere is still mysterious when the credits roll . the climax is followed by 15 minutes of epilogue that does little but weaken the already labored tale . after pre-release audience testing , the actors were called back to re-shoot the ending . it's difficult to imagine how the original could have been worse . following the recent tradition of lengthy films , this weighs in at over two very long hours . the weak scenes could have been cut , but then there wouldn't have been much left . the movie was supposedly held up by effects work , but there's nothing special on the screen . we never even see the monstrous squid or the menacing storm . stealing from " alien " , " the abyss " and the disastrous " event horizon " , this film has learned nothing from them . remarkably levinson and hoffman's other currently showing film is " wag the dog " , a smart and entertaining piece of work . this one could have been titled the same sans one word . ( michael redman has written this column for over 23 years and is amazed that the wild raccoons party mardi is next week . it seems like only a year since the last one . <a href= " mailto : redman@bvoice . com " >redman@bvoice . com</a> is the magical electronic eaddress . ) [this appeared in the 2/19/98 " bloomington voice " bloomington , indiana . michael redman can be contacted at <a href= " mailto : redman@bvoice . com " >redman@bvoice . com</a>] -- <a href= " mailto : mailto : redman@bvoice . com " >mailto : redman@bvoice . com</a> this week's film review at <a href= " http : //www . bvoice . com/ " >http : //www . bvoice . com/</a> film reviews archive at <a href= " http : //us . imdb . com/m/reviews_by ? michael%20redman " >http : //us . imdb . com/m/reviews_by ? michael%20redman</a> 
