Red Dragon - Collector's Edition

Rating:
Summary: A fair beginning to a great trilogy.
Review: A few years ago, I saw Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal for the first time. To keep it short, I loved those movies and pratically worshipped Hannibal for being one of the best film characters of the 90's. As the phase died down, I started to hear about Red Dragon being in production. I wasn't very excited. It sounded like a quick cash-in after the immense success that was Hannibal (look at the box office sales for that and see for yourself), and I didn't expect very much out of it. Seeing it in theaters on the opening week, my expectations were set low, but Red Dragon turned out to be above average. It's not on the same level as SotL, but it does the series justice. And this regular dvd edition helps it out a little too.

If you somehow don't know the story of Silence of the Lambs, or even who Hannibal Lecter is, then it wouldn't hurt to start here seeing as how this is the prequel. Dr. Lecter holds a dinner for some of his friends and associates after an evening at the symphony. Agent Will Graham shows up, asking for Dr. Lecter's help with a case. They talk about how he's heading in the wrong direction with the case and discusses his new view on it. After a few minutes of Hannibal leaving the room to take care of something, Graham explore's the office and finds a book of Lecter's, discovering he's a cannibal. As he turns around, he's greeted with a knife right in his stomach. Hannibal and Graham struggle for a few seconds, only to have Graham cram a few arrows in Hannibal's stomach as well. Yes, it sounds silly, and it is. Hannibal staggers a bit, but continues to go after Graham. After a few rounds of the revolver, he's out (but not dead of course). Hannibal is arrested, and Graham makes a recovery. Time passes, and he's given a new case from Jack Crawford (he doesn't look anything like he does in SotL by the way) about the "Tooth Fairy". Because Will is able to tap into the killer's mind and see things as they do, the case requires his gift. But it ends up being too tough for him to handle on his own, so he seeks Hannibal for help on it. It's basically the same premise of SotL with different characters. There's more psychological parts with a lot of hidden messages between Dr. Lecter and the Tooth Fairy But the nice change here is that the killer begins to have feelings for a blind woman, adding a sweet bit of romance to it. The scene with Francis and Reba with the tiger is one of the more romantic things I've seen...involving a serial killer anyway. But in the end, Red Dragon just didn't hit me as hard as its parent movies did. Maybe it was the director (bingo), maybe it was the style it was shot. Either way, it's enjoyable to say the least.

The acting in Red Dragon is just as good as SotL and Hannibal's. Sir Anthony Hopkins does a great job as usual, but I wish they would've touched him up a bit with make-up. He looks so much older than he did in the other two films that you can't help but notice it. Ed Norton was perfect for the casting of Will Graham, and exactly how I imagined him in the book. I liked how they got the original actors who played Barney and Dr. Chilton. Once they appeared on screen I couldn't help but grin like an idiot. Picture and audio quality for this fullscreen edition is about as good as you can get. They did an excellent job with the special effects. I won't ruin anything for you, but near the end of the movie is when everything goes hectic, and fire never looked so good. While Danny Elfman normally does a flawless job with the music score for movies, here it just doesn't have enough of his usual elements. I don't know if it was Ratner's wonderful wisdom that decided on this or not, but I was a little disappointed to find out that the movie had less music than Hannibal did.

The special features here are nice, though the Director's Edition holds all the best material. I accidentally picked this version up (even if I swear it said "Director's Edition" when I bought it) and it turned out to be ok. First is the commentary, which is a joke. Director Brett Ratner and writer Ted Tally sit down to tell us what we'd hope for inside/exclusive information, but it just ends up that Brett wildly masturbates to the "great job" he did on the movie. Seriously, about 2/3 of the commentary is him going on about how great his directing ability is. It's just sickening and I wish I hadn't even selected that special feature. There's also an isolated music feature where you can watch the movie without dialogue or sound effects. This has a few bits of commentary wit Danny Elfman here and there talking about each piece. The rest of the special features are mostly just there to add to the character of Hannibal. FBI files, criminal profiles, the life story, etc. It was interesting to find out about his sister, which is a big part of why he's the kind of person he is. The deleted scenes were deleted for a reason- they didn't add anything at all, and would've slowed down the pace of the movie. So there's no big loss here. And since I have an eMac, I wasn't able to access the dvd-rom features. But from what I've heard, they're small techincal things like a script you can read along while watching the movie.

Red Dragon's a good movie. It doesn't do anything new for the drama/thriller genre, but it doesn't fail either. Fans of the Hannibal series should check this out if only to get more information out of a timeless character. But do yourself a favor and pick up the Director's Edition, or wait until a box set with all 3 movies and more special features comes out. And if one is announced, I'll post so here to let you know.

Rating:
Summary: Yes, it does exceed expectations
Review: I had already entered 1986's "Manhunter" into my personal cult film pantheon, and was worried that a remake would just screw up that fine movie. I was pleasantly surprised that the producers of "Red Dragon" did the right thing and didn't attempt to take Manhunter on head-to-head, but instead to provide additional context to the Harris book. Yes the ending was a cliche, but I think the writers' reasoning was that those who had already seen Manhunter needed to be surprised too. I can respect that, and I think the ending was well done.

Comparisons are inevitable, so here goes. Brian Cox vs. Anthony Hopkins: very favorable, I think because the writers and producers had Sir Anthony on a much tighter leash than in Hannibal. The role called for restraint and Hopkins delivers. I particularly liked the first scene, where Graham realizes that Hannibal is a cannibalizing murderer. Fans of the earlier movie may recall that Graham's realization is slightly different (in Manhunter, Graham glances at a book on war wounds, and realizes that Hannibal is the killer) but aesthetically the opening scene makes perfect logic in its own right.

William Peterson vs. Edward Norton: both fine actors, with somewhat similar styles. Mr. Norton is excellent in the role in the remake. Mr. Peterson was more melodramatic (think: wiping hand on thigh while watching the Jacobi's home movie) but I believe that's more a function of writing as opposed to acting.

Tom Noonon vs. Ralph Fiennes: both were excellent and believable in their roles as the psychopathic Francis Dollarhyde. I suppose Noonon was a little bit higher octane, but that's again a function of writing as opposed to acting.

Dennis Farina vs. Harvey Keital: I'm a *huge* fan of "Midnight Run" so I'm biased in favor of Dennis Farina. I liked Dennis Farina better in the original. He had a lot more energy than Mr. Keitel.

Overall, the film is very enjoyable for both fans of Manhunter and those who have not seen the original. I recommend it for all. Like the Amazon.com review says, this film could have fallen into any of several pitfalls and it didn't.