Dustin Hoffman: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

4. Norman Goodman - Sphere (1998)

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 Hollywood€™s 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 there€™s 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 doesn€™t appear to be having any fun, remaining deathly serious despite all the silly crap happening around him.
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Handsome. Charismatic. Intelligent. Noble. Witty. I'm none of these things, but I'm a half decent writer, I guess.