A full decade after 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs won awards and critical acclaim, the story of Clarise Starling and Hannibal Lecter continued in Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, a patchy follow-up that seems more intent on showing off its bigger budget, larger cast and bigger set pieces which come together in a story that seems disingenuous to the path set by its predecessor. Ridley Scott does a terrific job in maintaining a full two hours of tension, and there’s no denying that David Mamet’s revision of Thomas Harris’s spectacularly stupid ending for the story is better by miles, but these are minor improvements and don’t go nearly far enough to give fans of the 1991 film a satisfactory ending.
After a bungled takedown puts Agent Starling (Julianne Moore) up for review in the eyes of the FBI, the cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) resurfaces after laying low in the wake of his escape prompting Starling to seek out help from an eccentric aristocrat (Gary Oldman), an admirer and victim of Lecter’s legacy. Her investigation takes her overseas where she intrudes upon the work of Italian Inspector Renaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) and the two work begrudgingly to track down the murderous doctor.
Moore’s no slouch as Agent Starling, but her downfall in the role stems from it feeling like an entirely different character both in personality and resolve, something Mamet couldn’t fully fix considering Harris changed her so severely in order to make the ending for the book make any sense at all (which it still doesn’t). Consequently, Moore is playing two different characters at once and the film feels like a mutilated cousin to the original instead of a sequel. Hopkins is as diabolical as ever, but he never has a single moment of menace on par with what The Silence of the Lambs gave us.
Hannibal is a disgrace of a sequel, but if you’re capable of creating a distance in your mind between the two, and you can conceive of Hannibal as a totally unrelated film about a cannibalizing murderer being pursued as an international criminal, then Hannibal works as a great little thriller. As a continuation of The Silence of the Lambs, however, Hannibal might be one of the more disappointing delayed sequels out there.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
There are none.
"Hannibal" is on sale September 13, 2011 and is rated R. Crime, Thriller. Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by David Mamet. Starring Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman, Giancarlo Giannini, Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta.
