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Hannibal

Rating

Director

Ridley Scott

Screenplay

David Mamet, Steven Zaillian (Novel: Thomas Harris)

Length

2h 11m

Starring

Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Ray Liotta, Frankie R. Faison, Giancarlo Giannini, Francesca Neri, Zeljko Ivanek, Hazelle Goodman, David Andrews, Francis Guinan, James Opher

MPAA Rating

R

Review

In the much-anticipated sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs,” Anthony Hopkins returns as the ever-loveable cannibal Hannibal Lecter as the title character of Ridley Scott’s “Hannibal.”

Taking up where the last movie left off, “Hannibal” finds that Lecter has moved to Italy where he’s leading a productive life as an art collector and expert. Half way across the world, one of his former victims, Mason Verger, has decided he wants to seek revenge for what was done to him by the cannibal.

To bring his plot to fruition, Verger devises a plot that involves Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore), the FBI Special Agent who Lecter developed an interest in. Through serpentine methods, Verger leads the two on a wild goose chase, culminating in a desperate attempt to exact the revenge he’s waited for years to inflict.

Hopkins takes Lecter on an adventure of change starting as a reformed and well-respected art connoisseur. By the film’s end, he’s reverted to his old ways, proving the adage that you can’t teach and old cannibal new tricks. Unfortunately, the power and raw terror Hopkins delivered his first performance in “Silence of the Lambs” with is mysteriously absent from the screen-chewing cannibal in this “Hannibal.”

Jodie Foster, who originated the Starling role did not return for the sequel, but Oscar-nominated actress Moore stepped up to the task. Moore manages to take every aspect of Foster’s version of the character and blend it effortlessly into her own version of Clarice. Moore easily picks up the accents, speech patterns and facial expressions that helped Foster win her Oscar for the role.

The rest of the cast need to take lessons from Moore. Oldman never recaptures his villainous prowess displayed in his other classic roles in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and “The Fifth Element.” Similarly, Liotta drifts across the screen like a wayward tumbleweed without direction or apparent interest.

Much of the chief complaints about the film can be directed at director Ridley Scott who, apparently pleased with Jonathan Demme’s direction of the original attempted to one-up the director by making his film more gore-laden and less thriller-oriented. The actors were at the mercy of a director who over-embellished everything and seemed to be less concerned with this sequel than his own later, Oscar-fodder film “Black Hawk Down.”

The film plays like a gory horror film where a psycho killer stalks innocent, hapless people. Much like Scott’s “Alien” direction, this film could have been an attempt to use the same storytelling structure, but with the original focusing more on psychological terror than gore-filled horror, “Hannibal” looks like an errant child looking for its niche.

The screenplay must also take some fault as the dialogue is weak and stereotypical for the genre and the plot runs languidly on for more than two hours without relenting or apologizing.

“Hannibal” is pales in comparison to the original and had Demme come back for the second, perhaps the result would have been more enjoyable. Instead, it’s a too violent, wreck of a sequel with limited redeeming qualities and little appeal.

Review Written

April 25, 2002