"Hannibal" is a horrible, misguided and unnecessary sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs" that would have been more unbearable to watch had it not featured Anthony Hopkins milking (along with the filmmakers) the Hannibal Lecter pop-culture myth with an almost silly degree of cartoony ridicule. The psychology, matter-of-fact realism and human drama that made its prequel such an outstanding one-of-a-kind experience are sacrificed at the altar of Hollywood’s sequel-cranking mentality. Ted Tally (Academy Award winning screenwriter of "Lambs"), Jonathan Demme (Academy Award winning director) and Jodie Foster (Academy Award winning actress) all passed on working on this sequel due to an inability by everyone involved (studios MGM and Universal, rights holder/producer Dino De Laurentis, author Thomas Harris, etc.) to agree on a script that would satisfy everyone involved. After seeing the flick is obvious that Tally, Demme and Foster were correct in their fears that "Hannibal" would turn the once-menacing antagonist from "Lambs" into a campy freak show.
The convoluted logic of this sequel, based on the best-selling Thomas Harris novel and penned by notable screenwriters David Mamet ("Heist," "The Spanish Prisoner," etc.) and Steven Zeillian ("Schindler’s List") dictates that Clarice Sterling (played as good as humanly possible by actress Julianne Moore) become something akin to a walking time bomb of repressed anger at the very government she has been working at for over a decade now. Led by corrupt Justice Department official Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta), Sterling gets the short end of the bureaucratic stick when a joint task force sting of a drug dealer’s hideout goes awry. Demoted and without allies, Sterling is forced to deal with the unresolved issue of the still-at-large Hannibal Lecter when she’s asked to talk to someone that claims to have new leads into the psychiatrist’s whereabouts. That someone is Mason Verger (an unrecognizable Gary Oldman), the only victim that survived Dr. Lecter’s chamber of tortures and a deformed recluse that uses his family fortune to try to track down Hannibal to settle the score between them. Verger, constantly shadowed by his right hand man & physician Cordell Doemling (Zeljko Ivanek), is also instrumental in getting Lecter’s name back into the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted criminals.
Then the movie shifts gears to Florence, Italy. We watch and spend a good deal of time (close to an hour of the movie’s 129 min. running time) with Hannibal Lecter as he sweet-talks his way into a cushy gig as an art director/museum curator and writes taunting letters to Clarice Sterling for her troubles with the failed drug bust. Then the good doctor plays a tedious and predictable (not to mention excruciatingly dull) cat-and-mouse game with an Italian police detective, Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini), that knows his true identity but is more interested in collecting a reward for Lecter’s capture than in apprehending the SOB. After Hannibal gets Det. Pazzi to spill his guts (figuratively AND relatively speaking) he travels to America, where he simultaneously stalks Agent Sterling for his own sick reasoning while also trying to avoid being captured by Mason Verger’s goons and the authorities. Since Krendler (the Justice Dept. guy played by Liotta) is in Verger’s payroll he arranges for Clarice to be framed for something she didn’t for the sole purpose of using the suspended-with-pay FBI agent as bait to attract Lecter into Verger’s trap.
All these jet set back-stabbing antics, James Bond-inspired revenge plots and world traveling twists of fate are never explained (how is it that a man in the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list has money to buy new silverware and get onboard an airplane?) and don’t make any sense whatsoever. In an odd way this lack of logic or human connection elevates "Hannibal" into a cinematic pantheon of camp that would be genuinely funny if director Ridley Scott ("Black Rain," "Alien," "Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down," etc.) weren’t trying to pass Lecter’s hilarious adventures as something to be taken seriously. Besides a gory couple of final scenes guaranteed to empty even the strongest of stomachs (see that picture on the right?), "Hannibal" also robs the cannibal psychiatrist of his dignity by reducing him to a pussy-whipped male whose power melts in the presence of the strong-willed FBI agent that Lecter met ten years prior. It’s as if the producers are afraid of portraying their leading character as the grotesque monster that his actions demand he be called, and are forced instead to turn Dr. Lecter into the most appealing weasel in a movie packed to the gill with even more unlikable weasels (Liotta’s Krendler, Giannini’s Pazzi, Oldman’s Mason Verger, etc.).
I’m sorry folks, but Hannibal Lecter was fun when director Demme offered his mannered psychopathic antics to us in small doses for 1990’s "The Silence of the Lambs" (as well as this weekend’s #1 movie "Red Dragon"). The character cannot carry an entire movie without losing every bit of the intimidating edge that made him famous, but give Hopkins and the new producers (many of them Italian) credit for pushing ahead when cooler heads (Demme’s & Foster’s in particular) didn’t prevail.
The Disc:
Being a recent motion picture by one of Hollywood’s most renowned visual directors almost guaranteed that "Hannibal’s" Widescreen Anamorphic (1:85:1) Video Transfer would look great when the DVD was released last year. Except for its needlessly-flashy and purposefully-distorted photographic effects (a visual tradeoff of sorts with Ridley Scott), "Hannibal" looks gorgeous and has no visible flaws or issues to complain. It’s odd to see a Ridley Scott movie not shot in the director’s preferred 2:35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, but even at 1:85:1 the man knows how to fill a movie screen and make it look beautiful. Audiowise MGM has also given the "Hannibal" DVD transfer a stellar treatment with three Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtracks in English, French & Spanish as well as a mother of an English DTS Soundtrack. Rather than show-off the technology for the sake of rattling speakers, these soundtracks (particularly the DTS track) provide quiet and subtle effects that made the action-packed shoot-outs scenes as enjoyable as the quieter moments (like the opera scenes in Italy) in which people just talk, sit around or quietly each other out for kicks (!). Hans Zimmer’s score is also wonderfully paced and unobtrusive.
English, French and Spanish Subtitles are also coded into Disc 1, along with Trailers
for "The Silence of the Lambs" (DVD release) & "Wintalkers" (theatrical teaser) and a Feature-Length Commentary Track by Director Ridley Scott that, as always, informs and entertains in equal measures with the depth and seriousness with which the man takes his craft. Disc 2 stars things of with an in-depth 76 min. documentary, ’Breaking the Silence: The Making of Hannibal’ that, to its credit, tackles head-on (and first) the absence of the lead star/director/screenwriter of "The Silence of the Lambs" in the "Hannibal" project. Subdivided into five chapters (‘Development,’ ‘Production,’ ‘Special Make-Up Effects,’ ‘Music’ and ‘Reaction’) and featuring more talking heads than the Sunday morning talk shows on Network TV. A hefty Deleted and Alternate Scenes section packs 14 scenes (with or without director commentary) that shows the many subplots and little things that Ridley Scott cut out of the final cut; it isn’t as bountiful a treasure chest as the deleted scenes in "Gladiator," but there’s good stuff to be found here (like the alternate ending wisely abandoned for the one in the actual film).
Multi-Angle Vignettes are a series of movie clips, abandoned scenes and features that can be viewed with multiple angle viewpoints and/or audio commentaries; sub-divided into Anatomy of a ShootOut, Ridleygrams and Title Design (each with more sub-categories), there are a lot of detailed things to be found in here by those who care about these sort of things. Then, under Marketing Gallery, there are Two Theatrical Trailers, 19 TV Spots, Poster Concepts (a few dozen of the 1,500 the DVD claims were drawn before arriving to the one in the cover of the two-disc set), Still Shot Galleries sub-divided into 19 (!) different categories, an in-depth Cast & Crew section (19 cast/crew members), Production Notes and the always-exciting DVD Credits. Phew, that’s a lot of stuff for such a shitty (but wildly popular and successful) Hollywood blockbuster.
bottom line:
Julianne Moore is no Jodie Foster and Ridley Scott is no Jonathan Demme ("Gladiator" and "Black Hawk Down" be damned in the context of this review); the absence of these two "Silence of the Lambs" principals (along with screenwriter Ted Tally) deals a lethal blow to "Hannibal" from which the picture never recovers. This Special Edition two-disc set is jam-packed with good special features and a great commentary track (as is the rule in most Ridley Scott movies). "Hannibal" is best enjoyed as a cinematically-stylish freak show though (and companion piece to new motion picture hit "Red Dragon"), since the psychological depth and eerie believability of its 1990 predecessor are completely absent. Good freaking Lord!
By - J.M.'The Horrormeister'Vargas
