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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 15.89%
Worth A Look: 17.55%
Average: 26.49%
Pretty Bad: 17.22%
Total Crap: 22.85%
18 reviews, 194 user ratings
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| Hannibal |
by Stephen Groenewegen
"Grimly efficient"

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Thomas Harris took a long time following-up his best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs. In the meantime, Jonathan Demme's 1991 film adaptation became a huge hit and surprise success at the Academy Awards.There were, I think, three key reasons for the success of the Silence movie: the public's ongoing fascination with serial killers; Jodie Foster's compelling portrayal of Clarice Starling, a capable FBI agent with recognisable human qualities; and Anthony Hopkins' enjoyably nasty psychiatrist turned serial killer, Dr Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter. Lecter was only a supporting character in The Silence of the Lambs but its success put heavy pressure on Harris for a sequel with Lecter. In giving the public what it wanted - 1999's best-selling Hannibal - Harris made it clear with his ambiguous ending that he wasn't planning on revisiting Starling and Lecter again anytime soon.
Hannibal lacked a movie (or sequel) friendly ending, so director Ridley Scott and his writers - David Mamet and Steven Zaillian - came up with one. It's the only major change in a grimly efficient adaptation. The Silence of the Lambs was shot like a TV movie, but directed with higher pretensions. Scott and cinematographer John Mathieson have given Hannibal a richer look , more befitting to the Florence locations. Hopkins has altered his portrayal of Lecter, in keeping with the time that's passed, and the vicious edge has gone. Julianne Moore makes a fine Clarice Starling, but the character no longer seems fresh, after nearly 10 years of a similarly strong female FBI agent in the X Files.
Hannibal suffers fatally from its alienating story, because Scott has not been able to make it suspenseful. Silence had some unbearably gripping sequences; Starling had a hostage victim to rescue, and was herself in danger. Hannibal is mostly concerned with Mason Verger (an uncredited Gary Oldman), a megalomaniac millionaire and disfigured victim of Lecter, whose only motivation is revenge. By comparison, Lecter is almost sympathetic, but that's not enough to make us care (or want to care) when he's in danger. Starling eventually figures as the pawn in Verger's sadistic trap for Lecter, but it's too little too late. Lecter has been so efficiently ruthless in outwitting Verger and his cronies that there's little surprise in that contest. And readers of the book know that Lecter won't harm Starling because of his admiration (and perhaps stronger feelings) for her.So we're expected to be satisfied waiting for the next piece of grisly violence to erupt. There's a macabre show-stopper at the book's climax which Scott faithfully reproduces, but without bothering to clue us into Lecter's reasoning (it could've been a beautifully ironic and blackly comic moment, but I don't think Harris or Scott bring it off). Hannibal is ultimately a faithful, but uninvolving and occasionally grotesque, reproduction of the novel.
del.icio.us
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1978&reviewer=104 originally posted: 03/29/01 13:43:45
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USA 09-Feb-2001 (R)
UK N/A
Australia 15-Feb-2001 (R)
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