Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Good Movie
Review: Hannibal was an excellent stand alone movie. It has been over ten years since I've seen The Silence of the Lambs, so I don't remember all of it's specifics. But Hannibal is chilling, and funny at the same time. It is almost a dark love story between the cannibal, Hannibal, and FBI Agent Clarice Starling. I would have liked to see the ending from the book, but this ending is pretty good also. Overall, it's a pretty good movie.

Rating:
Summary: Hungry ?
Review: If you thought Silence of the Lambs was gory, well you haven't seen anything until you've seen Hannibal. This has some of the sickest scenes I have ever seen. The dinner scene is especially stomach turning. Their are some fine performances in the film, great locations and Ridley Scott's direction is very good. However if Hannibal wasn't so gross and graphic it could of been great. I mean just how many times do we have to see closeups of the distorted Gary Oldman's face ?

Rating:
Summary: Sick cuisine; sick ending
Review: I give this movie two stars only because I like the opening scene featuring the FBI shootout with the gangster mother. Scott does a decent job adapting the screenplay from Harris's novel (initially titled Morbidity of the Soul). What inclined Harris to write such a grotesque ending? I'm glad Jodie Foster turned down the role. I'm also glad I rented this film instead of buying it. Hannibal has the most over-the-top sick ending I've ever seen in a film/novel. I'm also a little disappointed that Hopkins agreed to do a second sequal. Apparently he has succomed to the lust for fame and fortune that intoxicates so many Hollywood actors. I don't plan on seeing this movie again.

Rating:
Summary: Total GARBAGE!
Review: Ive never written a review about a movie. I felt the need to do so here because it was such a completely appauling POS. I cant think of the correct words to describe this movie. Maybe "symptomatic" or "unhealthy" does more justice. Unfortunately, the fact that I thought it was so disturbing (on many levels) is a reason why many people might actually like it - sick people. With such movies being pumped out by Hollywood, there is absolutely no surprise kids can walk into school and blow away their teachers and classmates (and why our society can so easily tolerate it). The actors involved in this movie should be ashamed of themselves. I for one will never watch another movie by this director or with any of the actors involved. I wish I could "unwatch" it. Shame, shame, shame. Yeah, graphic violence and over-the-top gore is real good for society. PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS.

Rating:
Summary: Embarrassingly Bad
Review: This is surely one of the worst wastes of talent ever served up by Hollywood. Ridley Scott shoots some pretty scenes. Julianne Moore is beautiful, as always. Hopkins is game. Unfortunately, their efforts don't add up to anything. Blame the writer. I've read Hannibal (I'm ashamed to admit it), and If there had been any oversized wild pigs around, I would have fed it to them gladly after turning the last page. Pretentious dreck. No surprise that Jodie Foster wouldn't have anything to do with this debacle. I'd be willing to bet that Julianne Moore wishes she'd stayed home as well.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed from the beginning..
Review: I guess the first indicator should have been that Jodie Foster didn't want anything to do with the project.. but having loved the first movie so much, I figured I had to see where the characters had gone in 10 years.. I should have left it to my imagination. The only mainstay of the 2-part series was Hannibal Lecter's cannabilistic ways. Jodie Foster WAS Clarice Starling, and the best part of the first film was her on-screen chemistry with Hopkins' Lecter. Moore's characterization of Clarice, hardened and bitter after 10 years with the FBI, was well-executed, but again, had it been a great part, Foster would have taken it. The violence in the movie is muted but gratuitous; it's as if the makers had to find the most disgusting way to portray Lecter's cannabilism. Gutting someone while hanging them over a church balcony and feeding someone else his brain while the top of his head sat on the table? Nasty. Equally so for the end of the movie. There doesn't seem to be any reason this movie was made at all - while we learn a bit more about Lecter's background and character, it's nothing that made him any more interesting or watchable than the first. Hopefully, there won't be a third installment.

Rating:
Summary: Hannibal: Nightmares for Dinner
Review: "Hannibal", the lastest of the Hannibal Lecter's sagas, is a masterpiece of horror, and in Ridley's Scott's capable hands, leaps over the previous two movies, including "Silence of the Lambs," and "Manhunter." Scott is a master of atmosphere and here he creates a great, foggy, dark, scary atmosphere that the story needs. Yes the story is rather baroque and preposterous but what images of horror! The previous two films can't touch the attention to detail, the dark atmospheres, so many bravura scenes, and gore. Anthony Hopkins tops himself again as Lecter, if that is possible. Julianne Moore is good as Agent Starling, never inferior to Jody Foster-Miss Moore makes the character her own. Gary Oldman is horrifyingly effective as the rich, twisted Mason Verger. A few characters from the novel were left out but not missed. The trappings of Lecter from Italy to the United States are bloody and clever and exciting. The ending. My God the ending-one of the most horrifying, funny, over the top torchers in movie history. Ridley Scott directs it all with great artistry. The end could have been better and leaves one a little satisfied for more-obviously a set up for another sequel. But I double dare you to try to sleep soundly after watching this at night alone, or cuddled up with a loved one. Definitely way too intense and violent for children but a must see for horror fans and fans of well-crafted movie making.

Rating:
Summary: Hannibal doesn't deliver
Review: One of the finest movies of the 1990s was THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. The film had a powerful and edgy feel: Hopkins gave his most chilling and greatest performance, Jodie Foster was believable and understood her character (Clarice), the way the story played was cerebral and the representation of the varying degrees of evil- through both the Lecter and Buffalo Bill characters- was brilliant. Fast forward ten years. Here's the sequil, HANNIBAL. You couldn't really expect HANNIBAL to match SILENCE, but you could at least hope it would be a great follow-up, right? Wrong. As it turns out, HANNIBAL has a few problems. It is missing the edge its predecessor has, feels too long and isn't really chilling because Lecter's dialogue is lacking the almost supernatural-feel that characterized SILENCE. But there are two even greater problems: #1. Clarice. Julianne Moore is a good actress, but Jodie Foster is the REAL Clarice. Foster had a feel for her character. Plus, it is hard to think you're watching the second part of one story when one of the characters looks radically different. Is it just me or did Clarice lose weight and become taller and facially dissimilar? It may have been Foster's choice to not come back, but the producers should have gotten on their knees and begged; they should have offered Foster everything she could have possibly wanted. #2. The ending. DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE. The ending of HANNIBAL is all wrong because of the ending of SILENCE. Consider SILENCE's ending: Buffalo Bill is defeated, Clarice has received her psychological evaluation and the only thing not resolved is the fact that Lecter is loose. That's what HANNIBAL should have done: resolved the one problem left over from SILENCE. Instead, HANNIBAL ends with Lecter on the loose yet again. So the question is, if Lecter was loose at the end of SILENCE, and if he's loose at the beginning of HANNIBAL, and he's loose at the end of HANNIBAL, what has been accomplished? What in God's name was the point? If Lecter was a) arrested or b) killed, then maybe we would have something here. Instead, the producers seemed preoccupied with planning a third movie. I don't think the makers of SILENCE were busy planning a sequil when they made their movie, do you?

Rating:
Summary: GROSS
Review: I had no idea what to expect from "Hannibal" except, like all other sequels, it couldn't compare to it's predecessor. Lambs was a very suspenseful and psychological thriller. I was not in suspense at all in this film, and the gore was so totally awful!!! I normally can stomach gore, when I expect it. But I didn't even think that Lambs' was that gory. Lambs had an appeal of it's own with the tension between the characters, and the amazing acting. It was an excellent movie that will always remain a classic. Hannibal, however, is so gory. I just finished watching it, and am so repulsed. THis was not expected at all, maybe I should've read the reviews here first as alot of people sent out warnings of the extreme gore in this movie. Aside from the gore, I was very disappointed with this movie. The changing of actresses was just wrong, if Jodie Foster didn't want to do it(and i can see why now), this movie should have never been made! I do like Julianne Moore as an actress, and I thought she did a fine job in taking over the role of Clarice Starling. Anthony Hopkins is great in this movie, it's appropriately titled as this movie is all about Hannibal. Not Hannibal and Clarice, just Hannibal. IT focuses more on his running than the chase that ensues once Clarice, the Italian policeman, and Mason Verger appear. Mason Verger...one of the oddest characters on film! HE is almost as sick and twisted as Hannibal, but at least Hannibal is nicer to look at. Mason had been "attacked" by Hannibal and is the only survivor of Lecter's. I never realized that it was Gary Oldman playing him til the end credits...GARY OLDMAN, he is a great actor, but where is the ability to change character types? He is so stereotyped now. THis is definitely his most outrageous! and the makeup job is so amazingly gross!!! this is a very gross movie. I never found this movie scary or suspenseful. It had a few laughs, and some great acting.-- Hopkins and Oldman. They should have left Ray Liotta out, as he is and always will be one of the worst actors in the history of film. Then we wouldn't have to witness that most disturbing scene in the film. It really made me hate this movie as the gore here does not do anything to help the story in my opinion. I wouldn't recommend this movie. I think it is one of the worst of the year 2001 if not of all time. If you are a big fan of gore, maybe you'll like it for that one reason because this movie has nothing else going for it.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful filmwork
Review: First let me ask: if you don't want gore then why, pray tell, are you watching a movie titled after a cannibal? I read this book as soon as it was released and could not help myself from cringing (then salivating for more) while my eyes paced through the pages. The movie is even better than the book, though matching it scene for scene. This is not a slowly building thriller about a dumb, sexually driven killer and the bright rookie trying to catch him. Rather, it is a shocker about a worn-down veteran chasing a man with too much taste and intelligence for his own good. Lecter's mind extends beyond morality. This is what makes him threatening. This is what makes him the most evil of any thing you will ever see on the screen. This movie is about depravity. If you don't know that going in, then you're as dumb as Gumm. Despite the gore--and including it--this film is very well done, superbly stylized and should leave your jaw on the floor by the end. A stunning peek into the baseness of the human mind when it ventures too far beyond the bounds of the humane.