There was a brief point in the nineties, after Jurassic Park, that anything written by Michael Crichton be it a book or a shopping list was optioned for a movie. This explains how duds like Disclosure, Congo and Sphere came to exist, with the failure of the latter cooling Hollywoods enthusiasm for all things Crichton. In the movie, Hoffman plays a scientist brought on to explore a mysterious Sphere at the bottom of the ocean, which soon drives the crew to madness with murderous hallucinations. Sphere is the closest Hoffman ever came to a horror movie discounting Ishtar and theres a discomfort to his performance that really shines through. He looks out-of-place in such a b-movie setting, and really stumbles over some of the clunky exposition he has to deliver. The main issue is he doesnt appear to be having any fun, remaining deathly serious despite all the silly crap happening around him.