A submerged spacecraft from the future containing a golden sphere that has the ability to physically manifest the darkest fears of anyone who enters its enigmatic interior is at the centre of this cerebral adaptation of Michael Crichton's bestselling novel from director Barry Levinson. Alternating between being genuinely creepy (the aquanauts' phobias are all unseen) and overly tame through the deliberate under-use of shock effects, this underwater Solaris relies on moody dread rather than cheap thrills to weave its spell. It's a wittily scripted science-fiction chamber piece that focuses on characters thrust into an extraordinary situation rather than the situation itself.

A spacecraft is discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, presumed to be at least 300 years old and of alien origin. A crack team of scientists and experts is assembled and taken to the Habitat, a state-of-the-art underwater living environment, to investigate.