Julianne Moore: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Clarice Starling €“ Hannibal

Hannibal is such a weird clash of genres and crew that it really has no business actually being a film. Directed by Ridley Scott, written by David Mamet and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, it's a cinematic Frankenstein's monster and by god, it shows. The Silence of the Lambs was like lightning in a bottle €“ it came from nowhere, scared the hell out of everybody and cleaned up at the Oscars. Hannibal, however, was a lot more disappointing and heralded the start of the demise of the Hannibal Lecter films. The main problem stems from Julianne Moore, though, who just can't grasp the character of Clarice Starling and comes off looking like a Jodie Foster imitator. We never really believe that Moore is in any danger from Lecter because she doesn't have Foster's naive innocence, instead plays Starling as more of a badass. It's a jolting contrast from the meek individual who cried after letting off her gun in The Silence of the Lambs, and it's ever-so-slightly jarring. It also doesn't help that her accent is all over the place as she tries to imitate Foster and bring her own things to the character. It's a noble effort, but unfortunately just doesn't work. She's at her best when she's taking on Lecter face-to-face and relishes her scenes with Ray Liotta and Anthony Hopkins, but these scenes are few and far between. Again, this is just a case of her being the wrong person for the role. We appreciate what they were trying to do with the character but it just came off phoney and resulted in a disappointing film.