Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Silence of the Lamb sequel not quite as delectable
Review: Novelist Thomas Harris has written three books about Hannibal Lecter - The Silence of the Lambs, its prequel, Red Dragon, and the sequel, Hannibal. The books, with their scenes of graphic and horrific violence, are more readable than they are filmable. This has not stopped Hollywood, of course, which has even filmed Red Dragon twice - once in 1986 as Manhunter and now under the original title in a version due to be released in 2002.

Hannibal nearly didn't become a movie. In his books, Harris created two famous characters, Lecter and FBI Agent Clarice Starling, whom Jodie Foster recreated for the movie of Silence of the Lambs. Ms. Foster won the Oscar for best actress, and the role became the one for which she is most famous. Hannibal's problems arose after Foster declined to play Starling again. The book's ending showed the character doing things Foster felt her Clarice would never do. This is a classic case of artistic differences. Harris had created his version of Starling, and Foster had created another one. Eventually it was agreed that the ending would be changed, but, by then, Foster was no longer available. Getting Hopkins to agree to do Lecter again had never been a problem. Luckily, the producers discovered that another enormously talented actress, Julianne Moore, was available, and project was saved.

This movie takes place several years after Dr. Lecter's escape from a mental institution, and he's still on the loose. Clarice remains with the FBI. She isn't the naive young woman she was when she first did battle with the demented doctor. She's a seasoned veteran and has a hard edge to her. Just as she begins to suspect that Lecter has resurfaced in Florence, Italy, she gets involved in a botched FBI operation and is suspended from the bureau. This slows her down but hardly stops her pursuit of him, as she and Lecter are inevitably drawn together through the strange and twisted bond they established long ago. Meanwhile, in Italy, local police inspector Rinaldo Palli [Giancarlo Gianinni], who is more interested in the huge reward posted by one of Lecter's victims than in justice, is about to learn that the doctor is not someone you play dangerous games with.

Once more Anthony Hopkins is brilliant as Lecter. He's such a great actor that he could probably entertain us just by reading from a telephone directory. It's not his fault that the character is not quite as interesting this time. One of the most fascinating things about him in Silence of the Lambs was the fact that he was confined to a cell and had to use his mind to envision what Clarice was telling him. Since he is free in Hannibal, the role doesn't require Hopkins to use quite so many acting skills. Moore does well in the rather thankless job of replacing Foster. She wisely doesn't attempt to duplicate any mannerisms her predecessor used. She playa Starling as she might have been when she was older. Ray Liotta is sufficiently sleazy as a government official who is Starling's arch nemesis. Gary Oldham has a major role, but he isn't listed in the opening credits and is impossible to recognize except in one short flashback.

I have some fairly major complaints about the movie. The script isn't as strong as Lambs' was because it veers away from the psychological aspects. This makes it far less chilling on an intellectual level. Much of its violence is gratuitous and seemingly meant to gross the viewer out. I know you can do all sorts of tricks with computer generated graphics, but does that mean you should use them just because you can? If, for example, you graphically show someone's being eaten alive by pigs, as Hannibal does, it produces an instintive fear in most people, but, ultimately, too much of this stuff results in mere cheap thrills and brings down the level of the movie's quality.

Rating:
Summary: Gore fest!!! (not the Al Gore kind)
Review: I don't see how anyone can call this a good movie. The movie spends all it's time trying to shock you. Geez, I can get that out of any second rate slasher film. For your time and money you get the following: Man hacking off flesh from face and feeding it to his dog, a horribly disfigured millionaire, a disembowlment, routine shootout, throats being slashed, fried brains, leftover fried brains, hand being hacked off, man eating boars, and the unforegettible knife in the crotch. And they don't stop there. It seems every five minutes they are showing that grotesque millionaire's face on the screen. The only hint of imaginatation of the filmakers was spent on gory and bloody images. Agent Starling is almost a secondary character spending much of the film sitting in an office.
The thing that made Silence of the Lambs a good movie was the psychological battle that went on between Starling and Lecter. You don't get any mental chess game in this trash. All you get is gore gore and more gore. I don't mind gore, if it applies to the plot. Saving Private Ryan had alot of gore, but it had a purpose. It was trying to show the horrors of war. This movie had no purpose. Like many other movies, it is a bad movie that hides behind special effects, gore and violence. And given it's popularity, there are many undemanding moviegoers out there for sure. My advice, just rent/buy Texas Chainsaw massacre.

Rating:
Summary: Boring!!!
Review: well, the long awaited sequel to silence... The Media was hyped, I got Hyped, the movie was banned from italian cinema.. wow this must be something.. however it was NOT! this is one of the biggest dissapointments ever.. it was just boring, there were a couple good moments but nothing horrible or terrifying

Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as the book...
Review: I had awaited the arrival of Hannibal on DVD ever sense I had read Thomas Harris's sequal to Silence of the Lambs. If you plan on seeing this flim, I recomend seeing Silence of the Lambs first, and if you liked the movie, read the book Hannibal. You'll be surprised, because Harris had a different ending.

The DVD is packed with an entire second disc that is filled with extras worth watching, the movie is great (but not as great as the Silence of the Lambs), and consider it worth your time and money. That is, if you like movies that will make you think, and not be able to sleep for a week.

Rating:
Summary: Gaag!!!! Gore Fest (Not the Al Gore kind)
Review: I can't understand how anyone can like this movie. It's a BAD movie, pure and simple. It spends most of it's time trying to shock you with gore. Well, guess what, it doesn't take any originality or talent in filmaking to do that. I can get the same thing watching a slasher flick. I almost asked for my money back.
The reason that Silence of the Lambs is so much better is simple. It worked due to the chemistry between agent Starling and Dr. Lecter. There was an intellectual chess game going on between the two that was fascinating. You don't get that with Hannibal. Clarice is almost a secondary character in this movie. She spends most of her time sitting in an office and doing research.
This movie isn't about two clever minds doing battle, it's about GORE. You get a man slashing his face and feeding it to his dog, man eating boars, a horribly disfigured millionaire (that you constantly have to look at), a disembowlment, fried brains, leftover brains, a hand getting chopped off, men being eaten by boars, throats slashed, etc. etc. etc. And of course, a good old fashioned shoot out at the beginning. If the goal of the producers was to embed images in your head that wont be easily forgotten, then they did that. However, when it's these kind of images, that is not a good thing.
How can you people call that a good movie? No wonder Hollywood keeps churning out garbage like this. There are apparently many [people] that love to watch [garbage]

Rating:
Summary: Well Done !
Review: I'm sure you have heard a lot of reviews by legitimate reviewers out there that thought that this film was not as good as they expected. Who cares!? I'm sorry if it's not as good as Silence of the Lambs but it is still a brilliant film nonetheless. My only disappointment was that Jodie Foster did not reprise her role, Julianne Moore seemed like a completely different character to me. Hopkins was great as the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lector. There are many sequences in this film that have impessed and disgusted people and they will never leave those people's memories. I know that they're imbedded in mine. But so what if it's not as good as Silence, it's in a class of its own and shouldn't be considered a sequel. Other Ridley Scott Recommendations: Gladiator, Blade Runner & Alien.

Rating:
Summary: TonyHopkins melts me...Well, not literally
Review: Wow...This was even more spellbinding than Silence of the Lambs...I was glued to my screen the whole time, and usually, although I'm not a lover of horror films, I found this one acutely tasteful, and gorgeously filmed. Anthony Hopkins is amazing, sharp and witty, with a delicate edge that brings you to the verge of tears as this twisted psycopath with a sense of humor, and (what is this...?) a heart, too...I love Hopkins in anything, really...But if you want to see Lector at his best, watch this film...Oh yeah, Julianne Moore compliments him well, too...heehee

Rating:
Summary: Surreal and darkly disturbing
Review: Hannibal Lecter, brilliant, cultured, and murderous, is back, some ten years after his escape as depicted in "Silence of the Lambs". He's an extraordinary creation, and beautifully acted by Anthony Hopkins in a way that is at once mannered and melodramatic, and yet curiously detached and unruffled in his calm and implacable progress through life.

The original film was a much more straightforward and realistic thriller than this offering, despite its delving into the darker side of the distorted human psyche. There was in "Silence of the Lambs" a series of crimes, a disturbed criminal, and the forces of law and order racing against time to rescue his lastest voctim with the reluctant "aid" - if you can call it that - and advice of an enigmatic murderer (the cannibalistic Dr Lecter) who is himself incarcerated in a grim hospital for the criminally insane. But although we might be astonished at the depiction of mental abnormality provided , basically the story is a credible manhunt :with remarkable little gore and violence actually shown on screen, despite the nature of the subject.

But "Hannibal" is quite different; much darker, and dreamlike. In fact - lets face it, - the plot is really rather unbelievable and does not bear close rational examination at all. Basically Lecter is now enjoying his freedom under an assumed name, as a cultured intellectual in Florence. But he is still being hunted, by the tough and able FBI agent Clarice Starling (now acted by Julianne Moore, who took over the role very convincingly from Jodie Foster) ; by an Italian police chief who is privately after the huge reward offered for Lecter's capture; and by the twisted and disfigured Mason Verger, (played by a totally unrecognisable Gary Oldman) who, as the only surviving victim of Lecter's former life, is planning a grisly and over-the-top kind of revenge. How Lecter has managed to create his new life, convince others of his new identity, and apparently enjoy a limitless income are questions that are not really answered at all. Nor should we look too intently at other aspects of the plot; they might also turn out to be rather ludicrous. But then, we presumably are not watching this film as a piece of logical and realistic storytelling, are we?

And that leads us to a rather disturbing question: Just why are we watchiing it? It's really a ludicrous story, and it does not give us any real insights into the natiure of humanity, or even the nature of abnormal psychology (although I understand the author, Thomas Harris, has an expert knowledge of the weirder aspects of the serial killer's mind. I myself cannot tell how accurate his portrayals are). We are forced, I think, to admit we are watching this film because of its sensarionalism, well-publicised gruesome violence, its gore, its grotesque images. And these are there in plenty ....especially the murder of the police chief (boy, do you feel that in your gut!) and the infamous supper scene....and if you really don't yet know the details of Dr Lecter's unusual culinary creation, I wont spoil the story for you here!).

No, iwatching this film actually shows that many of us, the audience, have suspiciously voyeuristic tendencies with regard to pain and bloodshed. Well, thats hardly a surprise. But for all that , the film is well-made, although it lacks the black humour that can be found in the original book (especially at the end; the surreal and dreamlike finale to the book has been changed to a simplistic and rather unpleasant scene involving Lecter escaping yet again alone.) Certainly the depiction of Lecter as cultured and highly intelligent is striking; we even realise his choice of victim is in a distorted way, "ethical" by his standards, although we learn nothing in the film of his horrific chilldhood, which in the book suggests how his mental disorder originated.

To sum up, this film may have a glossy and artistic appearence, but underneath is really a reasonably simplistic horror film, with some startlingly nasty effects, and a lot of gore. Its actual story - and probably the motives of its makers - do not bear close examination, but it is certainly a good example of its genre, and if you are not looking for intellectual stimulation, and have a strong stomach. it works well.

As a final note, I feel that the film's musical score, subdued and classical in style, adds to its dark and dreamlike atmosphere. In places there is such contrast between what we hear and the images we see that the effect is both startling and memorable. In particular the score uses extracts from Glenn Gould's later recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations: Gould's version , in my opinion, represents some of the most sublime music ever recorded, and its effect, contrasted with the grotesque visual imagery onscreen is to make you shiver. Well, causing shivers is, I suppose, one of the reasons this film was made. I certainly will never again be able to listen to the slow and sombre Variation 25 whilst eating my supper! and I would guess that the gentle Mr Gould, were he still alive, would be horrified by the use of his music in this way. Still, it's effective.

Rating:
Summary: Cordell!
Review: Man, I really enjoyed this movie, and I have to say that Gary Oldman is just perfect in this movie. No need to mention Anthony Hopkins and Giancarlo Gianinni who are also perfect in their roles. I did not like the idea of replacing Jodie Foster with... Julianne Moore, but I guess the movie is so good, I'll have to forgive this mistake. Miscasting? Moore tries so hard to look tough and honest that she fails terribly to the point of being unintentionally funny.

But what's to say about this movie? Well, as we all know, Hannibal Lecter is free and hiding somewhere in Italy. But one of his victims, wealthy Mason Verger is planing an elaborate scheme to get his revenge: trapping Hannibal Lecter to watch him being eaten by wild animals.

I have to say the music is excellent, cinematography... wow! It's a really elegant movie, superior in any way to its predecesor, The Silence of the Lambs. I highly recommend this one.

Bon Apetit.

Rating:
Summary: ANTHONY HOPKINS DOES IT AGAIN.....
Review: I AM A FAN OF ANTHONY HOPKINS AND HE DID NOT DISAPPOINT ME WITH
THIS SECOND HANNIBAL MOVIE. IT IS A LITTLE MORE EXCITING THAN THE FIRST AND A LITTLE MORE GORY BUT IT IS A GREAT MOVIE TO OWN
ALONG WITH SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. I JUST WISH JODIE FOSTER WAS IN
THIS MOVIE...