Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Read The Book; Forget The Movie
Review: The book was great, but they had to twist the story all around in the movie. Why? This movie is not even close to the Silence adaptation.

Rating:
Summary: Ready for the main course?
Review: In this Hannibal series, this, IMHO, is far and away the best of the group. Stylish, atmospheric and beautifully photographed, directed and scored. The music, especially, is haunting and absolutely perfect; after all, this is Grand Guignol at it's finest hour, thanks to the Master, Ridley Scott. Even the gore is done in an operatic fashion, and when the Abattoir takes center stage (which is rather often), you are still hypnotized and mesmerised by the spectacle, the story and the images. Nothing is gratuitous; nothing is done for shock value, but rather, as an integral; part of the story. Sir Anthony Hopkins is Hannibal Lecter, and his speech, his subtle nuances, and his asides (one favorite is his exceeding delight in the moment just preceding the demise of someone who crossed his path and shouldn't have...alas, too late.) Lecter is such a fascinating character that even his worst moments are beautifully choreographed and served up as a new and tantalizing dish, exquisitely prepared for your pleasure alone. Irresistable...yet he is a fiend. What a gorgeous paradox! Ray Liotta is great, especially toward the end, and Julianne Moore (again, IMHO) makes a superior Starling. I do not like comparisons, but with Moore you get more into the character of Starling, and are not distracted by thinking it's Jodie Foster playing a part. Mason Verger, another remarkable character, who has excellent reasons of his own to capture Lecter, lives in isolation on his estate (the famous Biltmore House, built by George Vanderbilt, ((still privately owned and lived in, can you imagine living in such a place! by the great great grandson...))in Ashevillle, SC, and also used for "Being There.") except for the beleagured doctor who he demeans at every opportunity, poor Caudell; and assorted faceless servants. When I read the book I was skeptical about displaying such a human ruin onscreen; but the effects are nothing less than remarkable...Verger portrayed by one of my favorite actors.
THIS is what moviemaking is all about; this should be used as a template in film schools/studies; it is flawless, not one moment of drag...but the character who made me saddest of all is the poor, fallen-from-grace Police Investigator, Giancarlo Gianinni; he evokes tremendous sympathy, even with a wife who is exquisite beyond words, and still has a good job, but falls prey to his own greed...perhaps for the benefit of his beautiful wife. The opera scene, the music, the streets, transports you away from wherever you are, which, of coure, should be the goal of all films, but in this case, it succeeds beyond any expectations. Magic. Only watch this on DVD! Nothing less will suffice or bring you the production as it is meant to be seen, in all it's glory...fantastic.

Rating:
Summary: "I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife"
Review: Let me start by saying "Silence of the Lambs" was a masterpiece in the psychological thriller/horror movie genre. The acting, along with the directional style, and the disturbing storyline and insane villains, made it one of the most compelling horror films to date. It's difficult to live up to the standards set in "Silence", and "Hannibal" proves that sequels can often become catastrophic. The film has a fairly good basic plot: Doctor Hannibal Lecter's frightening return. But, other plot elements (a crazy guy trying to feed Hannibal to wild bores) complicate the film. Julianne Moore is a good actress, but for me, Jodie Foster will always be Clarice Starling. As for Anthony Hopkins, his talent is undeniable, in my opinion. The Italian setting fits the character of Hannibal perfectly. But, the horror-movie grossness goes slightly over-the-top. All in all, a fairly good horror film, but not nearly as good as "Silence of the Lambs" or the Hannibal film that came out recently called "Red Dragon".

Rating:
Summary: Did everyone ignore the opening credits?
Review: Honestly, within the first five minutes of the movie, the credits say "based on the novel by Thomas Harris." To address the complaints of the viewers who only saw the movie and did not bother to read the book, Hannibal and Clarice are kept apart for most of the story. Changing this in the move would have completly destroyed the story. The famed dinner scene (wonderfully filmed; nobody can tell which is a puppet and which is the actor), referred to as both comedy and horror, is again WRITTEN that way in the book. The movie is wonderfully filmed, not as a sequel to "Silence of the Lambs" which it is not, but as a story about Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Sadly, some of the plot elements were diminished or removed, but the movie is beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, and amazingly edited. Of course, the book is better, but this is true of all three stories. This doesn't make the movies any less disturbing or entertaining, if that is the word, but by reading the books more can be appreciated in the movies.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing....
Review: After seeing Gladiator, I thought it was cool that someone was going to do another Roman movie. The Punnic Wars being one of the key battles for supremacy of the Mediterranean. Rome had one city standing in the way of its domination and that city was Carthage. There were three battles. One of the battles involved a Carthaginian general named Hannibal.
This movie had me a bit confused as I was waiting for the climatic scene with the elephants crossing the Alps. Especially since parts of it were shot in Rome. Nor did I see any Centurions for that matter.
Anyways, I didn't really care for this movie. It didn't seem like it had a plot other than trying to gross the heck out of the audience. Whatever.

Rating:
Summary: Not a sequel
Review: Don't waste your money on this film. If you liked Silence of the Lambs, what Red Dragon, not Hannibal.

Rating:
Summary: Probably the best that could have been done given the source
Review: Hannibal is not a great movie. It is not even a particularly good movie. However, given that the movie was based upon Thomas Harris's wreck of a novel, the fact that the movie is fairly entertaining and not a total disaster is great credit to the talents in front and behind the camera.

Thomas Harris's two superb novels - Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs - gave birth to fantastic adaptations. 'Hannibal' on the other hand, was a ridiculously weak novel.

The worst thing about Hannibal is the way it treats one of today's best known literature and movie characters - Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lector. In previous books, Lecter had a mystique about him, an aura of terrible, invincible evil, but all that was reduced.

Firstly, the uncaged Lecter is no where near as menacing as the man behind bars. When imprisoned, Lecter is a caged demon, a shadow that threatens mankind and must never be unleashed upon us. But out of chains, he's an elitist, a sort of evil James Bond, a man who likes nice cars, good food and expensive wine. Indeed, in the book, Claris locates Lecter by simply tracing the most expensive wine bottles in the US. What a disappointment.

Second, Harris made Lecter the hero of the book, by pitching him against pedophile Mason Verger. When facing a child rapist, Lecter, who 'merely' eats adults, is seen as a hero in comparison. A 'good' Lecter is much less interesting than the heart of evil that he was in the previous installations.

Worst of all, Harris gives Lecter a motive. It turns out (spoiler) that Lecter kills people because the Nazis during World War 2 murdered his sister. What a cope out - the greatness of Hannibal was in his evil being inexplicable, as he actually told Claris in 'Silence', you could not reduce him to influences. Harris completely sold out the integrity of the character by giving him the motive.

In Hannibal the movie, the production team wisely alleviated (although they did not entirely solve) all of these problems. The scene in which Claris traces Hannibal by his wine consumption is gone and less time is spent on his fancy food intakes. By downplaying Verger's pedophilia, Hannibal does not look that good in comparison. Finally, the silliness of the motive is ignored completely.

Furthermore, the improved script features much more contact between Claris and Lecter. The interaction between them is the heart of the story, and yet in the book, the only contact among them in some 400 pages is a single letter from Lecter. Here the producers introduce several more communications between them, including a phone call in a very climatic scene.

From a technical point of view, the movie is well executed, with unnecessary scenes and minor characters from the book discarded, and great attention spent on the fantastic scenes in Florence, where Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi tries to outmaneuver Lecter, but end up outmaneuvered himself. Those scene are not bad in the book, but Scott's wonderful sense of scene, and the amazing photography really brings the menace alive, and help preserve the aura of danger around Lecter.

But the movie again cannot completely disregard the novel, and the main plot of the novel is a fairly pedestrian cat and mouse story, where two parties hunt for Lecter, to results neither of them expected (but the audience surely does). Try as hard as the producers do to escape the confines of the story, they just can't. Most of the movie remains an effective, extremely well directed and acted, thriller. That is all.

Then we come to the controversial ending. After a lukewarm book, Harris finally comes up with an interesting premise and some powerful scenes. (Spoiler) After Capturing Clarice, Lecter begins in an effort to turn her into his dead sister, using drugs, brain washing, and his own mental powers. This is an extremely cool notion, which leads to the book's best scene - the infamous brain dinner.

In the novel, Hannibal captures Paul Krendler, an FBI executive who does all that is in his power to harass Clarice Starling. In a gross but brilliant scene, Harris depicts Lecter opening Krendler's skull, and piece by piece taking out parts of his brain. We read the breathtaking description of dinner conversation, where the three of them eat Krendler's brain. With each additional piece which Lecter takes out and cooks, Krendler's speech retard more and more, and from a highly aggressive yet sophisticated person he becomes an agree, bitter, childish, and finally speechless person. It is a terrible scene, but it is truly both shocking and amazing.

The movie, lacking the proper foundations for this scene, completely misses the point. The special effects are so over the top as to make the scene unbelievable and not the least bit scary. Furthermore, because the producers (wisely, in my opinion), deleted so much of the back-story, at this point they have no idea what to do next. So you've got a little chase, some bantering between Starling and Lecter, as Scott rushes towards the ending credits.

Ultimately, the only way to have made a good movie out of 'Hannibal' would have been to completely rewrite the story. Having to work with what Harris gave them, Ridley Scott and the rest of the production team salvaged as much as possible.

Rating:
Summary: A huge missed opportunity
Review: Hannibal is the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. Most sequels are inane rehashings of previous elements that made a success - Hannibal is very different but still inane, perhaps much more inane because it did *not* rehash what made SotL a success.

The sophisticated serial killer Hannibal Lector is free, trying to get a job as curator of an important library in Florence. We follow the bumblings of Pazzi, a policeman who is lured by a rich former victim of Hannibal to capture him, with the predictable grizzly results. Hannibal comes back to the States, stalks Agent Starling (who is suspended after a drug bust gone wrong, in a number of scenes that transpire stupidity), plays mind games with her, and finally confronts her in her own home, eating the brain of her rival Paul Krendler in a memorable scene.

The first half of Hannibal is great, apart from Pazzi's stupidity. Let's face it, even for three million dollars, would you repeatedly talk to a guy who's on the FBI's Most Wanted list and knows you are a policeman looking for him, alone ?
The second half of Hannibal is completely off-kilter. We don't care about the relationship between Hannibal and Starling except insofar as they give us insights in their psychology. Anything else is pedestrian and alien to the whole idea of Hannibal Lector. This movie thinks that Starling's ineffectual attempts to kill Hannibal at the end are interesting. They are not. This was a major missed opportunity. Also, the whole story of Mason Verger, a man who disfigured himself under the influence of drugs provided by Hannibal, is not interesting, nor is it necessary to the plot.

The horror scenes are terrific ...There is a masterpiece in there, I know this for certain, and I know it could be made - but here it is buried under incompetent policemen, disfigured power-pushers, snowglobes, and unfulfilled promises.

Rating:
Summary: Should have fed Hannibal to the pigs..."Ah, Clarice-YAAAA!"
Review: Aaron: What a waste of talent....and time. Ridley Scott hasn't ever wasted my time on watching his flicks, which are always awesome, until this one.

I wish Hannibal were dead-he deserves it. (my brother) Michael......your say?

Michael: This film could have been way more thought out, and planned. Silence of the Lambs makes this movie look like an opera nightmare. More talent in the next one please.

Rating:
Summary: good movie
Review: this wasnt like the silence of the lambs but it was still a good movie just diffrent. i watched it about 6 times its so good. its very entertaining just like silence of the lambs or even more.i would recomend this dvd and say its worth buying. i watched the second disk in the dvd and that is also good and interesting. i recomend hannibal to anyone who isnt that squemish and likes a good thriller.