The 1998 sci�fi horror film Sphere was the 4th film to be made out of a Michael Crichton novel. The plot of the film is quite complex and goes about with the idea of what if we had the power to make our thoughts come true. This leads to an interesting film that starts off as an undersea Alien and ends as a race against the clock, psychological thriller.
The score for Sphere is an interesting mix. The music�s mood changes frequently from wonder to fear and then terror. The tracks set a good pace and have some great moments of bombast and suspense.
There are however, many flaws with the score. Many very good cues from the film do not appear on the album and those that do are completely out of order. Also the tracks are more an arrangement of the score rather than the score as heard in the film. This is probably the most annoying aspect as many tracks are missing the endings they originally had in the film and these missing endings are far superior to those on the album. Some of the tracks such as �Their Beast Within� I do not recall hearing in the film even if it did it certainly is not the end of the score in the film.
The omission of the film�s climax is easily the most sorely missed item on the album. The track Manifest^3 has the excellent bombastic beginning to the climax, however, the heroic ending after the discordant noise in the middle is missing.
Most of the tracks descend into the sound effects mode that Goldenthal fell into when scoring Alien3 after a minute or so of good music at the beginning of each track, but this does not spoil the album completely.
The theme for Sphere is simple and brooding for the first 2 minutes or so, performed with strings, obes, clarinets, flutes and piccolos.. At first this theme is annoyingly dull and tedious but Goldenthal then lets out a glorious burst of the theme that captures the mysterious beauty and wonder the golden orb in the film creates. The theme returns several times throughout the score. The moody, haunting theme makes a prolonged and effective appearance in the �Sphere Discovery� track and the lighter more enjoyable theme reappears in �The Gift� which stands out as the best non-action cue in the score.
The tracks �Wave� and �Andante� are tiresomely dull and repetitive with no development and no interesting music at all.
The manifest tracks, �Terror Adagio�, �Water Snake� and �Fear Retrieval� are the action cues that have made it onto the CD. All apart from �Terror Adagio� slip into sound effect mode after a minute or so but for those first minutes all the tracks exhibit some inspired action music the best being �Manifest^3� which begins with an exciting cue as the remainder of the dive crew run for the shelter of the mini-sub to escape a bomb blast. The music is like a more serious sounding version of the fight cues in Batman Forever. The track is fast and brass dominated with a heroic fanfare with the strings making a screeching noise at frequent intervals whenever the counter on the bomb appears on screen in the film.
The �Manifest Fire� track is also a good starter but is missing the first 2 minutes of the cue, had this two minutes been there it would be another excellent track. The track has the worst section of discordant noise in the score with a minute of unrelenting noise, rasping trombones and clunking percussion.
"Fear Retrieval" is a dire awful track that is incredibly effective in the film but hideous to listen to with discordant noise and jarring rythmns tacking up much of the track. The Same almost can be said for "Water Snake" which clunks along with percussion driven discord. The only good part is again at the beginning of the track and comes from a part in the film at least 40 minutes before the snake attack. This too me seems to solidify my theory that this is an arrangement of the score and not the score as it is in the film.
The �Terror Adagio� track has the best balance between tension and action. The track starts with a slow bubbly string and harp effect combined with trumpets to make a heroic and brave beginning and then breaks into a first pace, edgy action cue with a long but more than tolerable section of bombast similar to the ending of �Manifest Fire� (Only better obviously). This last part of �Terror Adagio� is breathless and is effective at sounding scary and exciting.
Overall the Sphere soundtrack is severely chopped up. There should be at least a few more tracks on the CD. There is some very good music on the release but the best (apart from the opening of Manifest^3) is not on the album and the long sections of discordant droning and rumbling prevents this score from being anything great. Quite a disappointment but still just respectable.
Music in the film: ****
Music on album: **
2. Main Titles (2:49)
3. Event Entry 6-21-43 (0:53)
4. The Gift (1:42)
5. Sphere Discovery (2:08)
6. Visit to a Wreckage (1:58)
7. Water Snake (2:37)
8. Terror Adagio (3:25)
9. Wave (3:18)
10. Fear Retrieval (3:48)
11. Andante (2:20)
12. Manifest Fire (3:49)
13. Manifest3 (3:48)
14. Their Beast Within (1:44)