Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Why is there not a ZERO star rating???
Review: This movie was absolutely horrible. I am not sure what this movie had to do with the book, as there were very few similarities.

DO NOT BUY THIS HORRIBLE PIECE OF GARBAGE.

Rating:
Summary: Too Much Gore Detracts from an Interesting Movie
Review: A decent follow-up to "The Silence of the Lambs," the adaptation from Richard Harris' novel just shows too much to be truly terrifying, at least in the psychological sense.

First, it is important to note what a great job both Moore and Hopkins do in this picture. Their performances keep a movie with a mediocre script truly entertaining. The supporting cast is excellent as well, with Ray Liotta and Gary Oldman (though you wouldn't know it from his appearance). Hopkins alone puts in a performance that makes this movie worth seeing.

My biggest gripe against this movie is the unnecessary gore that is displayed with too much frequency. For me, the most terrifying part of "Silence" was learning how the man occupying the cell next to Lector died. We didn't see it, we just heard about, leaving our imagination to create the imagery for us. In "Hannibal," there's just no room for imagination.

Like I said, the movie is completely character driven, which works because there is a great cast. For those of you who were disappointed in the ending of the novel (I know I was), the movie provides a different (and in my opinion, more appropriate) ending.

In the end, I think your enjoyment of this film will be based on the expectations you have going into it. I think this movie is extremely successful as a thriller or horror film, but it doesn't have the developed psychological component of "The Silence of the Lambs," or "Manhunter" (the first in the Hannibal Lector series).

Rating:
Summary: Should have stuck with the original ending...
Review: I'm not going to go into what the original book ending was to Hannibal, but the ending chosen for the movie was a copout. As for the movie, that would be my only complaint. Moore held her own in a role that doesn't call for much depth an insight, as this is Hopkins' show. One of the real bright spots is of course Gary Oldman as the main antagonist Mason Verger. The makeup is fantastic and his sadistic portrayal of the character is dead on perfect. All in all, better than Manhunter but a notch below SOTL. If you are going in expecting Silence of the Lambs Part Two, you will be disappointed. Hannibal is on the loose and the psychological interplay he had with Clarice in the first film won't work as well here as action does. A fun film with a very funny, but disappointing, take on the ending

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't get any better than this !!
Review: This picture is one of the best I've seen in my many years of reading and viewing scary movies. Ms Moore gave an outstanding performance and set the tone for the movie from the start. Mr Hopkins? What can I say but as usual, flawless !! I haven't been startled by any movie for a long time but this one made me jump about four times and squirm quite a bit.

Rating:
Summary: Hannibal (I think the amount of stars says it all)
Review: This much anticipated film with everything you could have, A good story setting, great new characters, Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta, Ridley Scott directing, and Steve Zaillian who wrote the script, the movie failed completely. How do you ask. No idea. You had excellent principal settings being Hannibal Lecter living in Italy, Clarice Starling about to lose her job because of a raid on a drug dealer, a corrupt Italian policeman trying to find Hannibal Lecter, and a maimed victim of Hannibal Lecter searching for him. The movie is just terrible. When I went to the theatre I just instantly thought the movie would be awesome, because I waited in line for an hour, but in my mind. NO WAY! When I found out Jodie Foster wasn't playing in the sequel I was a disappointed, then I saw the movie and I realized how come she didn't. And now that I have seen it I am thrilled she didn't play in the sequel. If you like gore and action feel free to watch but if you like more of a psychological thriller don't waste your time. And if you saw The Silence of the Lambs (See my review) you won't want to watch this one. Silence of the Lambs was perfect. This can't even relate. Not only to the the Silence of the Lambs, but also to the book. The book is excellent, masterfully written, the ending is just absolutely perfect. However, unfortunately these two, well how do you put it. They can't even be compared. I wish the whole movie could be changed. I just hope the new upcoming movie Red Dragon will be much better. And hopefully Ted Tally will write it. The book Red Dragon was excellent. So lets hope that Red Dragon will be better than Hannibal.

Rating:
Summary: A bland movie. Makes you want to puke it up.
Review: Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that this is a good movie. The follow-up to the critically successful "Silence of the Lambs," is a meager attempt at best. I guess the problem stems from the fact that the novel was not that good. "Shock value" and "tasteless" are a few words that come to mind. In a movie with such great talent and a pretty good director, you would hope that the movie would succeed where the novel failed, but that was not the case.

What intrigued me about the first film was the everlooming presence of Anthony Hopkins. Behind the glass cage, you sensed the danger in his character. In this film, he's all over the place. Now, he's just an old guy that's walking across the street. They tried humanizing him, trying to give him more emotions to work with, which was a mistake, since at face value, Anthony Hopkins looks like one of your dad's older friends - harmless - instead of the psychopathic killer we'd expect from him. His presence is gone. Now we know why he's a psychopathic killer; ...

Honestly, the only thing that kept me awake in the film are the over the top gross out scenes we'd expect from a bad "Nightmare on Elm St." film. If this film didn't receive the NC-17 rating for violence, I don't know what will.

Still, Anthony Hopkins gives a great performance. That's about it.

Rating:
Summary: Time to die(t)
Review: From the first moment of the opening credits I knew that this was a different angle on the "Lecter-Starling show". Classy, arty titles and a very chic overall feel contrasted with the SoTL opening sequences which are almost home movie by comparison. However therein lies the problem. The gloss of "Hannibal" removes us to a distance from the characters, and where SoTL was visceral, sweaty, and real, Hannibal is almost voyeuristic by comparison, somewhat uninvolving.

It was only my familiarity and, yes, fondness for the characters which drew me in and it was only my active interest in developments which kept me working at watching the film, and compared to SoTL, there was some work involved.

Where the book fleshed out Lecter, free in his own world of culture and experiences for the refined mind, the film touches the same ideas, but without the literary backup offering insights into Lecter's thoughts and views on the world around him, we can only watch the character, and, superb though Hopkins' acting is, there is almost inevitably a loss of contact with the character of Lecter.

The scene shift from the opening FBI stakeout in the bleached concrete wilderness of the US location, to the sumptuous vistas of Florence bathed in golden light serves to emphasise the gulf between Lecter's and Starling's worlds, and the killer with refined tastes lives well while the good-intentioned Starling suffers under the media spotlight. Having emphasised this aspect so well, the film then falters in its mission to bring these two diametric opposites together, achieved so well in the book.

The book strains credibility to a massive degree, but has the cohesiveness and plausibility to allow us to become involved and to believe, for a while, what we're being told (sci-fi does this all the time, but then we're way out of the "normal world", whatever that might be). However Hannibal- The Film, because it is less closely involved and somewhat voyeuristic, and meant to be set in the world of today, not tomorrow, keeps us at a distance, keeps us questioning just how plausible the whole thing is.

So, I suppose I don't like the film then ... but I do. Bereft of the smaller details (Barney's role for example, more extensive in the book) it certainly seems shallow, but in terms of cinematic effect it works well on the big screen. Quite how it will come across on DVD I don't know.

The high spots for me were the scene at the opera (with Lecter effectively stalking Pazzi), for the music (Vide Cor Meum on the soundtrack CD) which is a moment of sublime beauty around a killer on the loose, and the Florence location in general. In fact Florence was one of the stars of the film (who's she?!).

Rating:
Summary: Better than "The Silence of the Lambs"
Review: Ten years ago the psycological thriller "The Silence of the Lambs" took home the Award for Best Picture meaning this was the best movie of 1991. It was pretty boring. Now "HANNIBAL" come out and was totally different. A brilliant, slick masterpeice that was very much better than "The Silence of the Lambs". It is very different from every movie I've ever seen. If you are looking for a slasher film, watch legend John Carpenter's "Halloween". If you want Silence, watch it. This is strange. It is romantic yet more slick, it is very, very twisted the way Dr. Lecter plays his deadly mind games, it is spooky, yet more mysterious. BUT I MUST WARN YOU. ONLY WATCH THIS MOVIE IF YOU HAVE A STRONG STOMACH AND HAVE A HIGH TOLERANCE FOR BLOOD. Although it is not a horror or action film it is one of the goriest movies I've ever seen. The "Dinner Scene" made me very, very sick to my stomach. Much gorier than "The Silence of the Lambs", much more interesting too.

Rating:
Summary: Expecting way too much...
Review: I was a huge fan of "Silence Of The Lambs". When I found out almost ten years later a sequel was coming out, I was chomping at the bit to see "Hannibal". Like so many other sequels, this one falls into the same category... disappointing. I was sorry to see Jodie Foster turned the film down, as Julianne Moore was unemotional & detached from her character. This was Foster's role - she was so good in the 1st one, no one could pull it off in the 2nd, but Jodie. The film spends way too much time setting things up. In fact, you don't even get to spend much time with Hannibal until the 2nd half of the movie. Fine acting once Anthony Hopkins makes his entrance... but that's about it. Ray Liotta - another stereo typical performance from him (will he ever play anything else but a semi-tough guy with a sense of humor?). Gary Oldman was good, but his make-up and labored breathing grew annoying quickly. Oldman's (character) life long plot for revenge ultimately back-fired and the whole hog wild scene of his death was just sad, and somehow fitting - you almost knew it was going to turn out the way it did. As was the scene at the end with Hopkin's uncapping Liotta... like it was something out of "Dexter's Laboratoy" on Cartoon Network. The violence and gore was too much - and unrealistic in most cases. Rent this one and see for yourself... disappointing to say the least. I paid $8 per ticket for my wife and I to sit thru this yawn-fest... I want my money back. I will not buy the DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Hanniblah...
Review: The follow-up to the frightening and clever SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is very much like its predecessor... without the frightening or clever. Here, those elements are replaced with gross images and international flair. Even with these fancy locales, the film can't help but becoming more intimate that the original... which takes Dr Lecter out of the realm of mysterious and untouchable and makes him just an intelligent murderer. With that mistake the fatal error in the film lies. Hopkins does an admirable job in this reprise yet, I feared more for the actor having a heart attack during the more active scenes that what the character was going to do. Julianne Moore takes command of the role created by Jodie Foster. She makes it her own and unrecognizable. If you are a fan of THE LAMBS, this is a movie better off unwatched.