Slashdot Mirror
Hannibal's Return
Jon's review, continued: This could have been a great movie.
Ridley Scott's Hannibal has all the elements of a classic -- a creepy story, gorgeous cinematography in beautiful locales, one of the world's greatest actors, a director hot off Gladiator (nominated for 12 Oscars last week) and a truly mythic monster, the cultured but cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
But Hannibal isn't great. Entertaining, sure, and worth seeing, providing you've got a strong enough stomach for some truly over-the-top gore. Somehow, Ridley Scott lost his footing in the making of this much- ballyhooed sequel. The movie wanders off into too many picturesque but dawdly sub-plots. And the violence is so extreme it becomes almost cartoonish.
WARNING: No outcomes are given away, but skip this next graf if you don't want to know any of the specific blood-and-brains details. I'm including them so that you can decide if you or your loved ones want to buy a ticket:
In this movie, you'll see a man's face get ripped off and fed to a dog, a woman's face gnawed off while she screams. You'll see humans fed to wild boars, a grotesquely-disfigured Lecter victim, a man disemboweled and hung, another garroted grotesquely. Then, one guy's skull is sawed open and the frontal lobe fried and served him for dinner.
It says a lot about the laughable MPAA ratings system that a couple making love can be grounds for an NC-17 rating, while the stuff above only draws an R. The theater where I saw the movie was crammed with little kids. Friends, we live in a loopy country.
Even some of the key people involved with the superior, very chilling Silence Of The Lambs decided to take a pass on this one. The producers had all sorts of trouble getting novelist Thomas Harris to finish his controversial sequel and when he did, both director Jonathan Demme and star Jody Foster gagged and bailed. So it took a decade for Dr. Lecter to make his way back on screen. Except for the ending, Hannibal is surprisingly faithful to the spirit of the book.
Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant choice to star in a contemporary horror film. He's gleeful, charismatic, powerful and truly unnerving. His performance is filled with great touches, like his habit of cheerfully saying "okey-dokey" before he does something horrendous. The big difference between Hannibal and Silence is that the latter was a story about a brilliant and dangerous mind imprisoned behind a mask and locked in a cell; about the very intense intellectual battle of the souls between this psychopath and a dutiful, smart FBI agent. Talk about having your mind messed with. Their conflict, and grudging mutual respect, even admiration, made the story a thriller but also a cold, powerful character study.
Scott seemed to have no patience for that kind of a contest, so he made Hannibal into a straight horror film, albeit one with some genuinely frightening moments, an eerie backdrop and soundtrack and dark and beautiful locations (including, oddly enough, the Virginia estate of the fourth president of the U.S., James Madison, who is somewhere -- maybe nearby -- spinning in his grave).
The movie opens in Washington, D.C., during a botched drug raid for which our heroine in unjustly blamed, and then moves onto Florence, which Scott uses to great affect. The doctor is in hibernation, pursuing a job as a curator of a medieval library, where he gives creepy lectures about unpleasant history. A local cop figures out who he is and decides to go after him for the reward (this guy is such deadmeat from the minute he shows up in the movie, he seems to know it).
The movie then -- after too long a delay -- flirts with the idea that Hannibal and his pursuer, played this round by Julianne Moore, are or might be attracted to one another. The other twist is that Moore has been humiliated by her slimy superiors in the FBI and Justice Department, a fate that draws Hannibal even closer to her. Gary Oldman plays the horrendously maimed Lecter-victim pulling strings behind-the-scenes to get vengeance on the good doc. This too seems to go over the top.
Too much of the action is over before Lecter and Agent Clarice Starling even get near each other, which takes some of the steam out of their confrontation. Besides, there's no real pursuit or chemistry between the two, intellectual or otherwise. In Silence, Clarisse was fighting for control of her psyche. Here, she's sometimes seems to be almost robotically battling out of reflex, maybe to keep her pension, or out of blind loyalty to the FBI field manual. She never says.
Mostly, Moore plays a variation of Agent Scully pursuing a meta-psychopath. She is so humorless, resolute, ethical and unwavering she becomes one-dimensional. It's fine to see a brave woman starring in an action movie, but does she have to have nerves of titanium? The guy is truly a horror show, and Superman would be creeped out around him. Clarisse could at least wince or blink. Contrast this role with Michelle Yeoh's in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Both women are tough, but Yeoh shows enormous vulnerability and pain, which makes her seem all the braver.
Dr. Lecter is, in many ways a riot, the movie's saving grace. The monsters in many classic horror films -- Dracula, Frankenstein, kill out of some uncontrollable instinct. Lecter just seems to hate vulgarity and rudeness, punishing both with unimaginable cruelty. Hopkins plays this character with relish and joy, one perfect note after another.
Unless you're queasy about the brains and intestines and people eaten alive (those scenes are bizarre, and now always brief) the movie has its moments. You will actually feel a chill go up your spine now and again, not a small accomplishment for any movie, even one that falls somewhat short of its great potential.
Besides, Hannibal is a bona fide mega-smash, racking up one of the top opening weekend grosses in Hollywood history. This idea strikes a deep chord with moviegoers -- the next film in the franchise is reportedly already in the works. So the culinary adventures of Dr. Lecter is likely to turn into a regular cinematic event, like the Bond films, Batman or Star Wars series. If you want to get in on it, might as well start at the beginning.
timothy's take:
"Guts in, or guts out?" First of all, please note: Hannibal is not for the squeamish, probably not to watch with your parents, almost certainly not a good first-date movie (though it takes all kinds), and not a good-guys-win-in-the-nick-of-time story. It's a ghoulish, macabre, perverse and disturbing film with the detective work, plot twists and horrifascinating feel of The Silence of the Lambs. That said, please note, if you've read the book, you may find a few corners cut.
As much of the Thomas Harris novel Hannibal as Ridley Scott, Thomas Harris and David Mamet could squeeze into 2 hours and 20 minutes, they did. Though the film would be comprehensible and probably just as horrifying to a viewer unfamiliar with "Silence," it makes much more sense to see Hannibal as a second act than a story in isolation. If you are one of the three people who have not seen the first film, Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (M.D.) is a long-imprisoned serial murderer with a penchant for eating his victims; Lecter agrees to help capture another serial killer to aid new FBI ageny Clarice Starling, but when betrayed by Starling's superiors escapes and begins his culinary pursuits anew. Starling pursues Lecter, as one of the few people who in some sense understands his twisted sense of civility, and on more than one occasion finds that his victims weren't quite innocent either.
Besides that background, three converging plotlines launch the story of Hannibal. Briefly: Agent Starling becomes the scapegoat for a failed drug-raid which was supposed to be an example of interdepartmental cooperation between the FBI and D.C. police; as a result she is publicly humiliated by a jealous bureacrat named Paul Krendler (the well-chosen Ray Liotta); An Italian policeman named Pazzi, played by Giancarlo Giannini, has by luck fallen onto Hannibal's trail when he becomes suspicious of the cultured interim curator of Florence's Palazzo Vecchio, an art scholar named "Dr. Fell"; and finally, recluse millionaire Mason Verger, Lecter's first victim ("the rich one -- the only one who survived."), has devised a method of trapping and killing Lecter as gruesome if not as artful as one of the good doctor's own schemes. The special effects used to create Verger's face are truly disturbing, but apparently under that twisted visage is Gary Oldman, always good at being bad.
These threads converge more neatly than I'd feared they might; Ridley Scott does an excellent job of tying together the story elements with judicious transitions and just-enough background to make each character fall into plac. The directing and cinematography throughout, in fact, are remarkably restrained -- no scene sticks out like quite like the Pittsburgh-filmed cage scene in "Silence," or the apocalyptic Los Angeles cityscape of Bladerunner. Still, Scott knows how to do gore. It's true that there's less detail in the movie than I might like -- for instance, about how Lecter came to be in Florence, to speak Italian, or to be so learned in matters of Rennaissance history and symbolism -- but subtlety is perhaps preferably to overexplanation in this case; Lecter works in mysterious ways, and as scenes in both movies hint, is a multilingual world traveler who could probably obtain such an academic position in any city in the world.
Anyone who liked The Silence of the Lambs for Jodie Foster's portrayal of the up-from-nothing Agent Starling ("white trash made good") is in for a surprise: Julianne Moore stuns. [Note: it looks like I have a slight disagreement with Jon on this point. Oh, well -- or perhaps, "Okey Dokey." -- t.] I was perhaps set up for disappointment, but this is one of the most graceful casting transitions in film history. No one besides Foster herself could better evince a slightly more seasoned, less hesitant Agent Starling -- still dedicated to her job, still dedicated to changing Hannibal Lecter's meal plan. Right down the set of her jaw and painfully-tamed southern accent, Starling is Moore is Starling.
Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, though, probably could not have been replaced. Hopkins' cultured phrasing and limpid gaze make Lecter's sinister, maniacal calm all the spookier, twisting the viewer uncomfortably through the gates which separate civilized, humane behavior from ... well, from gutting and eating the census taker who asks a rude question, or taking an autopsy saw and -- never mind. Anthony Hopkins obliges with a performance every bit as magnetic and nerve-jarring as the Hannibal Lecter of 10 years ago. (I'm waiting for a parody sketch on Saturday Night Live to combine his roles as C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands with his two runs as Hannibal.)
There are some subtle (and unsubtle) differences between the book and the movie, mostly the exclusion of certain characters and subplots -- Clarisse's roommate is nowhere to be seen, for instance, and neither is Mason Verger's vengeful sister or her lover, nor yet the children brought to Verger for immoral purposes. (Even in a movie which ends the way this one does, there are some things you'd rather not even see on film -- I doubt many viewers will clamor for a Directors Cut DVD featuring the unseen child-abuse scenes.) The way that Verger expires in the book, and the issue of his issue, may have been too much for the studio to handle, never mind potentially nauseous theaterfulls of viewers.
Those ommissions, though, are all acceptable concessions to brevity; I wish Scott, Harris and Mamet had found room to squeeze in just a few of the cut scenes, though, like the book's flashbacks about Lecter's childhood, which provided at least some explanation for Lecter's decidely anti-social eating habits. Without them, Lecter comes off again as an anthrophagous Moriarty whose victim-eating is just an arbirary manifestation of evil, though in this movie as well as in the first his sense of propriety is remarked on and wondered about. At one point, Starling asks the sinister, aggressive Krendler whether he wonders why Lecter dines on his victims. Krendler at that point ought perhaps have screwed on his thinking cap a little tighter, because his ambition to punish Starling's hard work with humiliation triggers the ever-watchful Lecter's passion for just desserts.
Still, the machinations of surviving Lecter victim Mason Verger are perhaps the most important part of the story, as they tie together both Starling (whom Verger tries to make bait for Lecter with political manipulation) and the avaricious policeman Pazzi, who attempts to cash in on the reward that Verger has established for Lecter's live capture. Pazzi ends up cashing out rather than cashing in, in what is probably the film's second-most horrifying murder, and the only one which shows off the doctor at this thoughtful, didactic self rather than killing for mere expedience. Verger's elaborate plans to attract and capture Lecter are not so he can impress upon him the somewhat off-kilter lessons in applied Christianity he apparently picked up as a child from the religious camps his father founded; instead (to be direct), he plans to cast him before swine. Specifically, before a gang of large, specially-bred, man-eating swine from Sardinia. Verger has even prepared a special area of his vast estate just to watch the spectacle of Lecter being ripped apart from the feet up. Since the damage done to Verger -- self-inflicted, though under the hypnotic effects of the much-younger Dr. Lecter -- involved his face being eaten by dogs, there is a kind of symmetry to this plot.
Needless to say, Agent Starling, though dedicated to ending Hannibal Lecter's killing pattern, cannot countenance meeting evil with evil in the manner Verger intends, and despite being removed from the FBI while under investigation for alleged misconduct in the drug raid which opens the movie, arrives in time to influence the outcome of Verger's scheme, which is not to say the swine go hungry.
In fact, hunger is probably not the first thought of viewers shuffling out of the theater after Hannibal; the final scenes differ from the book's ending enough that speaking of them in any detail would give away more plot than I'm comfortable with. Suffice it to say that vegetarianism may just have a new posterboy, and Lecter himself prefers just about anything to being trapped in a prison cell, or even in handcuffs.
p.s. And though not listed on the Hannibal page on IMDB, isn't that Ajay Naidu (Samir from Office Space) making a quick appearance as a perfume expert?
p.p.s. Note how the ending of the movie
seems to be subliminally influenced by a vegetarian cookbook -- that can't have been accidental;)
I also can not believe that this did not get rated NC17. For example, I think the cut scenes from "Eyes Wide Shut" to avoid a NC17 are far less offensive/disturbing/innapropriate than many of the scenes in Hannibal. I'm not against violence in movies, but it seems that America is extremely apathetic to any violence at all - even in it's most grotesque form.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Even Hannibal wouldn't eat Katz.
Hannibal has taste.
I will not go so far as to say that the first film wasn't commercially driven, however I will say that everyone involved has been overshadowed by what has went before. 'The Silence of the Lambs' was a great film.
It is amazing how often sequals are a dissappointment. They seem almost guarranteed to be worse than the first, but this is just the laws of averages.
--
Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/* in its mouth... */
--Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
First of all, I don't doubt that Katz is doing his usual exaggeration here.
But if there really was a little kid that went to see this movie, his parents should be put in jail for child abuse.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
My weekly ills are washed aclear when Sunday morning comes because I know it's time for my Jon Katz fix. Every week at this time I get to read another lengthy and extraordinarily insightful review of a film. I admit I was disappointed with last week's review of Saving Silverman instead of Hannibal, because Hannibal is the sort of film that DEMANDS Jon Katz's (and nobody else's) attention. This week, however, much to my dismay, I find that Timothy has added his opinion to this film.
Jon Katz's review was marvelously helpful. I wasn't sure whether this movie would be right for me and once again Jon Katz has sheparded me on the right course. It was a clear and concise review that went into enough detail to allow me to decide whether or not to see it.
Timothy's review did not help.
In the future, Jon Katz, please refrain from the sharing the spotlight. You're brilliance so overpowers the rest of them that I can't bear to see their name on the same page as yours. Please try to fly solo from now on.
Thanks.
--
You can't imagine how much I really do love Jon Katz.
--
You can't imagine how much I really do love Jon Katz.
(I filter all non Katz stories).
I agree with the above when it comes to the part of Clarice. Se is a Scully rip-off, but at least she's good at that. Hannibal however ist a great character, and this is conveyed to the audience every minute of the movie. Each and every thing he does seems - as twisted as it might seem first - logical and fits into his character.
One of the best things about the whole thing is the use of special effects. There are no purple blood fountains like in other thrillers/shockers, they don't try to catch Mr. Lecter with some truly-amazing-state-of-the-art FBI supersecretweapon, but instead it's all about the story that inevitably draws towards a surprising (but not totally unpredictable) end.
About the rating: here in germany (yeah, I know that I most likely didn't get half of the depth due to the "localisation-layer"), the movie is actually rated 18+ because That Guy Is Eating Human Flesh!!! Not because of some rather cruel scenes, because of which it was originally meant to be given a 16+ rating.
What I found a little disappointing is the failure of the movie to actually keep up the suspense over the whole two hours. It's definitely got its lengths during which a short nap doesn't mean you won't get the rest of it. But afterall, it's a far above average film for anyone who doesn't mind some fake blood and well-acted acts of violence.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
In the opening credits you see security tape being fast-forwarded and then rewound, and played forward, and stuff. I think it is a clever reference to the fact that when the universe stops expanding and contracts, that, Hannibal wants Clarice to take his sister's place in the universe. That was never said in the movie, and in the book there were a lot of flashback sequences to why hannibal is like he is, and about his sister. Also, Mason Verger was much less evil in the movie. In the book he makes a child cry, by telling him lies about his foster parents, then has cordell wipe his tears away with a tissue, and mix the tears into a cocktail. Also, i don't like the fact that they didn't use the original headline from the book, they used something else instead, in the book they said DEATH ANGEL!, CLARICE STARLING. Also, they dropped her roomate out of the movie too. I like the movie, but the book is waaay better.
Cui peccare licet peccat minus. -- Ovid, Amores.
Manhunter is a flic from 1986, featuring - wait for it - Hannibal Leckter.. This one also features the guy who supposedly caught Leckter in the first place. Now he has to catch someone else and looks to Leckter for help... I thought this one was more entertaining and even a better story than 'Silence of the Lambs.' It is based on the story, 'Red Dragon,' a name they didn't go with to avoid people from thinking it was a karate flic.
Marques Johansson
You have no chance to survive make your time
in Canada the movie is rated AA (which is 14 or over you get in, 14 and under you need a parent).. movie was quite good
on the other hand, Katz does have a good point with the rating system. If I was a parent, and had to choose between covering my kids eyes on this movie, or on a movie like StripTease -- it'd definitely be this movie. I'd rather have them see breasts than a man disembowled and hung. :)
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Is it any wonder our children are all growing up to be psychopaths and murderers when they are fed this daily diet of massacre ?
Its about time decent people took action against this. In the same way we need gun control, "Hannibal" is the best argument yet that we need more censorship in this country.
Sure people will whine about free speech, but I don't see anything in the constitution about the right to make and distribute corrupting pornographic filth.
I really have had enough. America used to be a safe and morally decent place to live. Recently our standing in the world has taken a nose-dive. Liberal interpretations of the constitution are to blame. Maybe George W will turn back the tide, but I am not holding my breath. What is needed is a grassroots rejection of all Hollywood values.
I just wanted to note, that "Hannibal" is in fact the third appearance of Dr. Lektor. The first movie is "Manhunter" (1986). "Silence" is the second part and "Hannibal" the third.
I can't watch a movie where every 10 seconds I say to myself "there's no way that could happen." I'm not referring to anything science-fiction, where we totally throw out the reality that we know, but rather these movies that attempt to stay in the context of the real world. Reality: you kill people, and eventually the state kills you back, or some other thug like yourself does. At best you land in an 8 x 10 cell with a bed and an open bathroon set-up, and they generally don't set you up with an entire home office to yourself. Not to mention that you likely get a cellmate who decides to take out his anger at the world on you alone. Hannibal... So fake. He's an old man, my grandmother could kick his ass... so don't give me this shit about overpowering 2 prison guards and killing an ambulance worker and escaping to some exotic island. Gaw!
Katz says: "It says a lot about the laughable MPAA ratings system that a couple making love can be grounds for an NC-17 rating, while the stuff above only draws an R. The theater where I saw the movie was crammed with little kids. Friends, we live in a loopy country. "
Whoa. Jon Katz is pushing for a stronger rating system? He's telling other parents what he thinks their kids should be allowed to see? (I haven't seen the movie and wouldn't let _my_ kids see it, but I thought the above was worth mentioning.)
I, like many people, was anticipating the release of HANNIBAL for a long time. Naturally, I went and saw it the first night it came out. Later that evening, I was asked by one of my female friends "How was Hannibal?". I liken getting asked this question to being asked "Do these pants make my butt look fat?". She was really anticipating the movie, read the book, etc etc etc, so I had two choices: Lie, and say "Yeah, it was great!" too be nice, or tell the truth and scream out "NOO! The pants don't make your ass look fat, your ass IS fat!"
Hannibal was quite bad. In fact, it broke the laws of physics, proving that something can both suck AND blow at the same time.
Wait for it to come on PPV; it will only be like a month. And you won't get screwed out of $20 per person after food.
------------
CitizenC
Perhaps you could have written that it was a disgusting link? :(
-- Cure for Cancer instead of SETI! (only w32 yet - mail and beg)
It says a lot about the laughable MPAA ratings system that a couple making love can be grounds for an NC-17 rating, while the stuff above only draws an R. The theater where I saw the movie was crammed with little kids. Friends, we live in a loopy country.
Recently, when a fuss erupted over the US MPAA ratings board giving the British feelgood family film, Billy Elliot, an R rating, the head of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, said of his job that he gets way more letters about bad language than he gets about people getting shot in the face. Ergo, a film like Billy Elliot will be rated R because someone says the word 'fuck', while a film like Nutty Professor 2, complete with a grandmother giving implied oral sex (with teeth out) gets away with a PG-13. It's why Lost World, complete with people being ripped apart by dinosaurs for our amusement, is rated PG-13, while a film like Requiem For A Dream, with it's important message, is sent to unscreenable land when it gets an NC-17.
See, the real problem with censorship isn't that some board says 'this is bad', it's that a lot of decisions come from what that board says. A rating should be a guide, given so we don't accidentally stumble with mom into a porno film, but these days a rating dictates whether a film can be seen by the largest slice of the audience (kids, teens and by extension, families), which dictates how many screens it goes on (suburban cinemas don't want to have eight R rated films showing at once) and, in these days of video store monopolies, whether you can even rent one of these films in your local Blockbuster. It's not a question of seeing that one cut second of a guy getting a knife in the throat, it's a question of even seeing the movie.
Now filmmakers know this. And in fact, many filmmakers have to sign a contract guaranteeing that they'll deliver a cut of the film to receive a certain rating, before even a scene is shot. I know from experience, having worked on a film where scenes were changed on the day to avoid an NC-17 rating, that what is supposed to be a guide for the viewer is becoming a guide for the filmmaker.
And the worst thing is, these changes are completely arbitrary. We all know the stories of Orgazmo being hit with an NC-17 even though there was less frontal nudity than in Boogie Nights. We've heard the tales of the South Park movie being told to remove the word 'motherfucker', replacing it with 'unclefucker' and having no further problems. And then there's American Psycho, which after submitting a film full of chainsaw and sledgehammer murders was told to remove one shot from a sex scene.
It's ridiculous. And it doesn't save anyone from anything.
Censorship is bad. It doesn't work. Nobody shot up Columbine High School because Leonardo DiCaprio wore a trenchcoat once, they did it because they could drive downtown and pick up a small sack of heavy weapons for $29.95. Sure, Leo dictated their fashion choice, but he didn't load the cartridges for them.
Cui peccare licet peccat minus. -- Ovid, Amores.
your cultural standards are little bit different than if your some past-your-prime fiefdom in an aging continent.
For better or for worse, we are living in the Pax Americana (if you don't understand this allusion, ask a history major, there are other important things to learn than Linux). The world looks to America for leadership and sacrifice (no, not the whole world, but most of it). Whenever dirty work needs to be done, vital fluids protected, American troops are the first to respond and the first to die. Witness one of Dubya's first acts as President, placing American airmen at risk to destroy dangerous Iraqi air defences.
This is tough, though. People are afraid of death and don't like to face it, they have to be toughened up and trained. Hence, the need for gory films (like Hannibal) and gory games (like Quake) to train impressionable young men and women to not be afraid of death, blood and goree. Sparta had naked exercises in cold weather, we have LAN parties.
Now, it's all well and good for certain European countries to adopt an opposite philosophy of pleasure seeking; sex is good, promiscuity is good, guns and violence are bad. But don't push them on America, we need to be violent to save the world.
Ask yourself this, how would Hitler have been stopped in WWII if the only opposition he had was a demand for greater sex ed and free condoms for German youth?
For those who have been to see it, how many little kids (obviously too young to be seeing this movie) were there in the theater? I didn't count very many, but I went to a late show. I'm betting that a large number of parents will take their kids to see this. (I've been seeing more and more little kids in R-rated movies over the past few years.) I'll bet these are the same parents who complain to lawmakers about the need for more restrictions on Hollywood.
Free Hans!
"Hannibal" was entertaining, but not a masterpiece like "The Silence of the Lambs". Poor Julianne Moore, I just couldn't ever see her as Clarice. She seemed to be overacting and trying too hard.
Anyhow, what I really want to talk about is product placement. What are these directors thinking nowadays? It seems like ever since 1994 or so, that product placement has become so blatant that it actually distracts you from the movie.
Did anyone notice the computer screen near the beginning of "Hannibal" that said "NetZERO" on it in like 4 different places? I mean, what the fuck? Is Ridley Scott not making enough money, that he has to take payments from NetZERO to slap their logo all over a computer screen??? That was so distracting.
And to a lesser extent, the mention of GUCCI everywhere. That is so ridiculous.
This is almost as bad as the films that incorporate current pop culture. Like using slogans or catch phrases, or making fun of current advertisements (I see this a lot)... don't they realize that not only is this distracting, but it also immediately dates the film? What happens 5 years from now when everyone forgets why some black guy saying "Whazzzuuuuuuup!" is so funny?
Another thing I have noticed is now they are running advertisements at the beginning of movies. Before Hannibal there were commercials for antacids and soft drinks. (I haven't been to the movies in probably 8 months so I don't know when this started).
WHAT?!?!??!???
Let's see... product placements in movies that are already going to make millions (do they really need the extra money to put in blatant product placements? PLEASE!). And ads before movies, while ticket prices still go up? I mean, I wouldn't mind sitting through a Sprite commercial, if it meant my ticket was only $5, but if I'm paying $8 why do I need to sit through commercials?
Movie going used to be such a pleasurable experience. Now I realize, once again, why I only go once every several months. Hey movie studios, I'm not your fucking advertisement consumer bitch, so stop trying to make me bend over!
Ben
I mean it started out great, and then the whole thing was ruined by the ending. I have no idea how the movie ends (I'm avoiding it because of the book) but the book took all the character development work on Clarice Starling from 2 novels and wasted it. The quality of the Hannibal Lecter related books went something like this...
Red Dragon was pretty good.
Silence of the Lambs was fantastic.
Hannibal started promising and ended as a dog.
A real shame.
Happy people make bad consumers.
JonKatz wrote it?
I've never seen Silence of the Lambs, but after Hannibal, I'm definately going to. Hannibal as in independent story offers more insight into the mind of Hannibal Lecter than people give credit. Lecter isn't evil, he simply has a different set of morals. The people he kills offend his sensibilities, and thus, he kills them in the way best gauranteed to offend theirs, eating them. As for Clarisse, I don't think she became a one dimensional pawn. If that were true, Hannibal wouldn't have lived through the film. Hannibal was a great film. The cinematography was incredible, and the performances by Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore were stunning. If Hopkins doesn't win Best Actor in the Academy Awards next year, I will be stunned.
<slight spoilers>
Two cases come to mind; first, after murdering the italian cop, Hannibal is able to sneak up behind the hired killer and kill him with a knife. One, the guy's got a gun, two, he's trained to kill people, three, hannibal is an old man. And then he's able to silently escape in the two seconds it takes for the other guy to enter the room.
Next, the part back in the states where Hannibal is having a phone-off with Clarice at the fare. He always evades her view, even going so far as to touch her and still not get seen. Again, One, Clarice is an FBI agent, Two, she's a very good agent, Three, Hannibal is an old man.
</slight sploilers>
The reason Hannibal was so dangerous was not because he was invisible, but because he was so much more intelligent than you. Man, Ridley Scott really should have done this right.
Anthony Hopkins, on the other hand, lived up to the previous movie. He contiuned to uphold the the character that strikes fear and apprehension within us all. He's a remarkable actor and he did a wonderful job.
The plot contained little structure. I found it hard to follow and to understand. The movie was long and by the time it was finished, I felt completely mentally drained because I was trying so hard to put the pieces together.
I have read that Anthony Hopkins is looking forward to doing yet another one. My advice to him, is to find another actress for Clarice, or get Jodie Foster back. Although I think his plans for dropping Moore are already in his mind. "I don't think the people that see this film need to see a psychiatrist." Julianne Moore had to see a psychiatrist after making the movie. Could this comment have been made about her?
I had no clue that was James Madisons Virginia home. Odd that she would pass a sign saying "Asheville" (which is in the mountains of North Carolina). Also, this house looked a lot like the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. Please let me know if I'm wrong. I live in NC (right below Virginia) and would love to visit James Madison's house some time.
No surge protector will protect my surge. - Commodore64
I read the book. I didn't like the movie.
:)
As mentioned by another poster, there were many elements of the book that were left out of the movie that I feel were essential to fleshing out (if you'll pardon the expression) the plot and character motivations. Most greivous was the omission of Lecter's childhood experiences with his sister. In the book, this helped me to understand Lecter's twisted motives.
Sure, there was gore, but other than the brain scene, it was all more low-key and less graphic than many other movies I have seen. The gore wasn't even particularly well done in most scenes. Maybe I'm jaded by having read the book first and letting my imagination work away. There was more close up, gut-spilling action in Starship Troopers, for example. BTW, Starship troopers sucked the big green donkey dong in my opinion.
In the book, Mason Verger was confined to his bed, his body "wasted away" and his face far more deformed than Gary Oldman's makeup indicated. And where was that funky eye cup/lens that kept his one remaining eye lubricated? Verger's mobility also bothered me. In the book, he had far more motivation for his hatred for Lecter.
Verger's sister and her circumstances were a really interesting plot element. I understand the necessity for keeping the whole thing within the two hour time-frame, but I would much rather have seen her story and a little less of the stuff in Italy.
When I read the book, I was shocked at the ending, but the more I thought about how it had been accomplished, it fit right into Lecter's motivation and skill set, and made a good statement about the pliability of the human mind (if you'll pardon the Ray Liotta pun); especially if one (Clarice) already had the love/hate-attractiveness/repulsion thing going for Lecter (which was not developed clearly, if at all in the movie.)
Changing the ending so drastically from the book just soured my totally on the movie. It appears that this was a blatant ploy to leave things open for the easy sequel or two or three. Once again, commercialism won out over staying true to the author's story.
On the whole, I wouldn't reccommend seeing it, especially if you read the book first and liked it. My experience might have been better had I seen the movie first and then read the book.
I really liked this review at Salon, except for Charles Taylor's (reviewer) criticism of Harris.
If you haven't already seen it, do rent and see "Manhunter". This was based on Harris' first book Red Dragon. I liked Manhunter much better than Hannibal. I also liked the Lecter character better in Manhunter.
Just my completely unsolicited opinion.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
I feel the movie could have used some trimming during the scenes in FLorence. The business of the Italian cop simply went on too long. I'd liked to have seen it get on with Clarice and Hannibal's meeting, or maybe some of the flashback scenes to Lector's childhood. The cop was lunchmeat from the first moment he interacted with Lector, and everyone in the audience knew it.
On the ratings issue, I think they're too fucked up to be any use. I'd much rather my daughter see a couple making love or hear the word 'motherfucker' than see the scenes in Hannibal. None are appropriate (she's 2) but I doubt she's have nightmares from seeing the first two.
-- When a fool hears of the Tao, he will laugh out loud.
The ending of the book I had a hard time buying, but I still enjoyed it immensely. The ending is changed in the movie for that reason and it's a lot more believable ;).
-antipop
But what a goofy country: Sex will draw an NC-17 rating, but you can rip somebody's face off and feed it to the dogs and get an R.
I don't know about elsewhere but Germany gave Hannibal an X rating (18 or older) because of the violence.
I wish Scott, Harris and Mamet had found room to squeeze in just a few of the cut scenes, though, like the book's flashbacks about Lecter's childhood ... Lecter comes off again as an anthrophagous Moriarty whose victim-eating is just an arbirary manifestation of evil.
No! It's a good thing they left that out. I was very happy Lecter's poor-little-me childhood did not make it to the screen. It would have destroyed his character!
I still can't believe Harris ever wrote that in the first place. What the hell was he thinking? He did a complete 180 from his previous characterizations of Hannibal. In the first two books (Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs), he emphasized the idea that Lecter simply was evil, not because somebody mistreated him as a child. He even has Lecter tell someone at one point that "our personalities are handed to us" along with our height, hair color, etc. He also tells Clarice that he "happened" -- that he wasn't made, he simply is. Harris ruined everything by trying to pass Lecter's behavior off on some childhood trauma in typical pop-psychology fashion. The only explanation I can come up with is that Harris decided to write the third Lecter book wildly out of character, just to see if anyone would care. After reading "Hannibal", my first thought was, "I have been trolled -- at hardcover prices, too!"
Free Hans!
No. that isn't James Madison's estate. That is the Builtmore mansion in North Carolina. Ive been there on that very balcony.
A lot of people seem to think that "Hannibal" is the second movie in the series started by "Silence of the Lambs." This is not true.
The first movie in the series was "Manhunter" starring William Petersen (late of "C.S.I." on CBS) with Brian Cox playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter
Just a minor point that I thought needed to be brought up.
I want all of the power and none of the responsibility.
Actually, to me he looked like a slimlined version of Morn from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Whatever you think he looked like, it certainly paled in comparison to the mental images the book conjured.. iirc on paper Verger was almost completely bedridden (no hooning around on that wheelchair), had a face that resembled a rare steak and had something set up to constantly drip, to keep his eyes moist.
Great dinner theater.
What else do you need to know?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
I saw that mask with the metal bars covering the mouth on Hannibal's head, and I thought, "Why not permanently strap one of those on Mike Tyson's head?"
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Why did it take Harris 10 years to write a sequel to Lambs, do you suppose? Let me take a guess: He doesn't like to be predictable or do the same thing twice. He writes dark, twisted, malevolent morality plays, and he likes to surprise and horrify you while he makes you think of things that strike you as new.
Red Dragon (from whence the movie Manhunter) was about becoming what you hunt. Silence was about finding what you hunt is already within you. Where to go from there? Hannibal is about being seduced by what you hunt.
In the book, the final triumph of Lecter is his seduction of Starling and her active participation in the brain-eating ritual (with a more appropriate victim, too, the boss whose boot had been atop her head since the ending of Silence). The movie was ruined because it makes no sense without this final twist, the revelation that Lecter and Starling are literally the only human and likeable characters in the story.
We also lost some of my favorite lines (oddly, the movie takes lines uttered by different people in different scenes and throws them together in a kind of hodge podge). Starling: "Ask me if I sound like Oliver Twist when I ask for MORE !" Lecter: "Listen to the sound of this stringed instrument. Its sound is the sound of your freedom..." The instrument being the crossbow which administers the coup de grace to Starling's brain-depleted boss. Starling, in reply: "Yes, the D below middle C, isn't it?"
The movie was pretty good, a faithful rendition of the story with forgivable nips and tucks to the plot (though I missed Verger's sister, who kills him in the book), right up to the final pulled punch. Starling was seduced by Hannibal, because only Hannibal was straight with her, only Hannibal could be trusted, and every force in her life pushed her into Hannibal's arms. Hannibal himself had believable reasons in the book (nipped from the movie) for taking her under his wing rather than making her into dinner. This could have been a great movie, but instead it sold out to squeamishness.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Perhaps I'm desensitized, but I just never even got squeamish. I liked the brain scene though, because it was just so cool. It was like, "how will they EVER top THAT one?!!!"
But most of the movie was boring. It was like you just kept waiting for Hannibal to do something, and he just kept keeping his cool. Every so often, he'd say something soaked in irony and the audience would give an appreciative laugh because hey, when Hannibal Lechter says "I'd love to have you over for dinner", heh heh heh, he doesn't mean what most people mean!!! Get it? Have you over for dinner? Ha Ha! He's a cannibal! You'd be the dinner!! Get it? Boy, that guy is creepy!
This movie had almost none of what made Silence of the Lambs so good - the phychological component. In that, Hannibal was scary because he seemed to gain an advantage over people even when he was locked in a straightjacket in a maximum security cell. He'd take small cues from people and sense their weakness with an alarming swiftness and move in to exploit it.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
SPOILER - DON'T READ THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE!!!
I have a question about the last ten minutes of the film when Clarice is in the house with the doctor. After she handcuffs them together, Hannibal seems to cut his own hand off to free himself. This is cemented when we see him with a sling, and only using his left arm on the airplane.
But my question is why wasn't Clarice wearing the handcuffs when she chased him out onto the water? Am I missing something, or is this an error in the movie?
Katz mentioned that some of the scenes were shot at the Madison Estate. This is a little unclear: the barn scene was shot at the Madison Estate, the house of Vernon was shot at the Biltmore Estate. Just thought I'd clear up any confusion...
IANAL, but I play one on
Once Hannibal's character was removed from the confines of prison, he really isn't interesting. The thing that made this character alluring in Manhunter and SOTL was that he was controlling everything and everyone while being locked away, which in itself is frightening - you cannot control this man by confining him.
Once Hannibal's cahracter is on the loose, who cares? He is not physically threatening, and none of his frightening attributes are enhanced by having him move around freely.
This movie had zilch suspense - ZILCH. Not once was I really on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next - you always knew what where the movie would be in five minutes.
Sure, Gary Oldman played a neat freak, but once you've seen him once, its not that shocking. This movie is just a polished slasher film - thats it, nothing more, nothing less. None of the talents involved in this production could save a script based on a book that should have never been written.
The number of product shots in this movie is astounding and shameful for Scott.
.....I listened to the AudioBook, and I was looking forward to watching Mason's sister stuff a live morey eel into his mouth. Also, I wanted to see Clairese eat Paul Krindler's fried brains. You reallly ended up rooting for the good Doctor in the Audiobook version. Don't flame me, I already know I'm twisted.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I agree, both of those things seemed really tacky. I haven't read the book, but there must have been some better way to handle that. Talk about almost ruining one of the coolest characters we've ever seen. I guess, though, that's to be expected from a movie/book focusing totally on him. It's hard to do that right.
The ratings system is pretty hosed. Just look at the mockery the South Park boys did to it with their movie (Every time the MPAA panel suggested taking away a violent scene, they'd add 5 more "fucks, etc" to the dialogue ...or was that vice versa?)
*Shrug* Who can really say what "moral" standards are anyways... Personally I find shitty movies more offensive than brain eating, bare breasts, and vulgarity... but hey...
E.
www.randomdrivel.com -- All that is NOT fit to link to
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I always wondered if they could do sort-of a cross promotion with Lecter's Housewares.
I'm 30 years old, and I remember Manhunter from my teens. I didn't make the connection to SOTL when it came out, but I learned about it a number of years ago. My wife read the first 2 books, and we both absolutely loved SOTL. She didn't know about Manhunter.
Two weeks ago, we went to a video store, and I requested Manhunter. The pimply, Simpsonsesque 16 year old kid said it was in, and that he was impressed as I was the only one to ask for it. Everyone had been clamoring over SOTL.
I don't read movie novels too often.. last ones were The Shining, Intensity, and Demon Seed. I haven't read any of the Harris books. Having watched the first 2 parts a number of times, I really feel that if you're a fan of this series, you're probably going to like it. I can see how it's been getting bad reviews on its own, but I'm definitely glad I saw it.
It was thoroughly gory, and it did go long. Even if I did know what was going to happen, its not like I didn't want to let the movie take me there. I definitely enjoyed the ride. Perhaps if I drop my 10 XML books and find time to read the Harris books, I might find that I was annoyed, but I doubt it.
--
Intelligent Life on Earth
i don't know what katz was thinking, but I saw this movie the other day and was greatly disappointed. The movie is so insanely Hollywoodized and full of plot holes that I feel that they had to throw all that gore in there just to keep peoples' attention. The movie is a typical hollywood blockbuster-thriller with very little substance. There were so many trite and cliché devices in this movie. The detective goes to see someone on the FBI ten most wanted criminals list, and he just happens to forget his gun , how lame can this movie get? That was just one example, I could list about 20. It was sad to see another excellent movie, Silence of the Lambs, defiled by it's inadequate sequel. Granted this movie might make a decent rental, I wouldn't reccomend anyone see it in the theatre.
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." --Saul Belloe
He's not the only one. I truly loved the way Lecter ended up with Starling - I thought it was wonderfully ironic.
I'm too sexy for you.
i really enjoyed it, to the last bite.
it is, after all, a love story.
will clarice be tempted by the flesh in hannibal III? after the FBI truly humiliates her?
we can all hope.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I knew I had the flu, but it wasn't that bad, so I thought I'd manage. Especially since I'd be sitting with three pretty girls...well, two pretty girls and one ugly one. And I was fine until the last two minutes of the movie. And then they showed the gruesome part (no, I won't spoil it). Perhaps I'd normally have been able to take it--but this was too much. I actually blacked out in my seat--it took cold water to wake me up.
Beware this movie. It's disgusting. I personally didn't like it much, but my three friends claimed they loved it. Maybe it's a girl thing (them being the girls, and I the guy)...
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Pete said that while dicey, he didn't have too big a problem believing that 50-year old Lecter could pull off most of the things attributed to him in these two movies.
... as Pete says, he does not pick fair fights, does not hesitate (even seems to enjoy) drugging or otherwise incapacitating his victims first.
... I was attacked by aliens. I am the most ethical babysitter you've ever had, and these senseless intrusions into my private life ... I ... did ... not ... stun and sell to that guy in the moving van ... your children, Susan and Bobbie." Well, that's just a thought.
I agree! Most of Hannibal Lecter's killings are not spur-of-the-moment; he watches his victims, figures out their motivations and weaknesses, times his attacks carefully to minimize his own exposure
50 (or even 60) is not so old that any of the things he does seem outlandish (in practicality, that is, not addressing their morality;) )
I'd still way rather let Anthony Hopkins babysit my children than Bill Clinton. Imagine coming home to find the children gone with Bill as sitter. "Honestly, I have no idea where they might be. I
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
In his interview, Katz says that the Virginia estate of James Madison was used. I hope he wasn't referring to the huge home of Mason Verger. That was the Biltmore Estate, the largest private residence in the country, located near Asheville, NC. (As the road sign in the movie points out.) I've been out there plenty of times, and if you've only been there once, you're hard-pressed to forget it.
Manhunter is the story of Will Graham, a retired FBI behavioral-science expert. (What caused him to retire? Well, he was the only man both sane and crazy enough to be able to crawl inside Hannibal Lecter's mind. He almost didn't come out again.) After a new serial killer murders two families, Jack Crawford (played by Dennis Farina here) pulls Will out of retirement. But lo and behold, this new serial killer is patterning himself after Lecter.
If you can forgive the mid-80s fashions and soundtrack, this is my personal favorite of all the three films.
Sir Anthony Hopkins takes over the role of Hannibal Lecter from Scottish actor Brian Cox. Hopkins and Cox take totally different approaches to The Bad Doctor; I prefer Cox, but Hopkins' performance is far from slouching.
... If you haven't seen Manhunter yet, give it a try. It's a "nobody's-ever-seen-it" film, and provided you can understand that in the mid-80s people actually dressed that way and listened to that sort of music, there's a heck of a lot to appreciate in it.
I felt that the movie was incredibly dumbed down. I don't know if this was to target a bigger demographic or what but the movie most definately did NOT do the book justice.
Starting off well, although slightly different from the book I was impressed at nearly all aspects of the movie. But, being Australian, the movies (grossly inferior) 4th July ending really ticked me off.
While I agree that the movie was ok it was no where near the callibre of the book.
My advice - see if it you want, just don't expect it to be great. You're better off spending a few nights reading the book.
This is a really unusual thing for Katz of all people to say. ;-)
--
--hongpong.com
Actually, the X-Files' Scully character is derived very strongly from Clarice, according to a lot of hard-core X-Philes. Both are red-haired female FBI agents strongly grounded in reality, and they must confront not only what is darkest about the world but themselves as well, and they end up entering a world of total unreality.
--
--hongpong.com
Isn't it funny that the same organization which can determine whether or not a movie is shown in theaters -- by means of the rating system -- is also the one that can determine whether and when it can be seen on your DVD player -- by means of Region Codes? Isn't it interesting how this organization has managed to get so much power that merely by assigning a letter or two ('R' or 'PG') or a number (region '1' or '3') they alone can make entertainment decisions for literally millions of people?
Doesn't anyone see anything just a little bit wrong with that?
quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur -- that which is said in Latin sounds profound
From the way these posts appear i assume that R is beloc NC-17. But i am confised, could someone please help me. In australia we have the following rateing schedule.
C - Children
G - General
PG - Parental Guidance.
MA - Mature Audiences (15+)
R - Restricted(18+).
Hannibal got an MA in AU.
How every version of MICROS~1 Windows(TM) comes to exist.
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
I felt that Hannibal failed to make itself its own movie. I sincerely doubt that I would have been able to understand many of the characters at all had I not seen the first movie. There simply was not enough development; and what's more, I felt that there were deliveries and situations that directly contradicted the characters as they'd been written. Had you only seen Hannibal, I think you would have built entirely different characters in your brain that if you'd only seen Silence.
In fact, it's not really much of a sequel. It's more of an expansion pack.
BOOM!
Inappropriate!
------
------
Post Your Inappropriate Responses!
i went and saw the movie opening night with a friend. i told her i'd be pleasantly surprised if the movie didn't suck.
in short, i wasn't surprised. well, that's not complerely true; i wasn't surprised that it sucked, but the ways that it sucked were quite surprising.
for example, how they didn't explain how the x-rays that starling got from verger were related to lecter at all. i'd imagine that the audience would be pretty confused if they didn't read the book.
the most interesting thing was the boom and lighting gear that was in several of the shots. towards the end, when starling and lecter are in paul's kitchen, the boom with the microphone on the end was clearly visible. so were some of their lights, and a big piece of tinfoil to diffuse the light.
sounds strange, but i swear it's true. the theater gave everyone who saw it refunds.
the manager said it was their fault. and i'm sure that if something like that got in the final release of the movie, it would have been mentioned in the review, so i guess it was just me.
can someone with more of a clue than the manager explain just what went wrong with that?
--
i saw it last night. I disliked the move for the following reason - it was hyped too much. I mean - i thought that the first one was bad enough...did they really need to make a second? and now i hear that thiers talk of a third? its like blair witch two. give me a break..the first one was so good because it wasn't produced with a lot of equipment..it was a very lost cost movie - that lack of production was what made the movie good....sigh - i guess that i'll just have to stick to the movies that i think'll be cool and not what some overweight man in his 50's tell me. :-)
I can't see how this is entertainment. I love a good, dark story; I see no point in grandiose bloodshed and gratuitous grossness.
I've seen people hacked open and tortured in the real world; how can any rational person consider such acts as entertainment?
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
Sure we love to see Hannibal Lector use his tactics. we all love a criminally insane genious in action, but it still didn't have the power as the first movie. Hannibal is an attempt to match the gruesome and sheer horror of the insane mind and tries to out do the graphic violence from Silence of the Lambs, and even show our friend Hannibal in action. Yet, with all this extra attempt, it still doesn't match the first one. The basement scene with night goggles remains to be the scariest scene in a movie. Ever.
www.rose-hulman.edu/~castlebs
nice job of bait and switch...
funny, the monkey doesn't look like shit. or naked women.. or naked women shitting down each others throats...
that is interesting.. somehow, i have become the one that needs to be censured.
Marques Johansson
I'm only 17, and Hannibal was the only movie that I've been carded for, I've seen plenty of R movies at like 14 and no one ever seemed to mind. They seemed to make a point to card young people for Hannibal though, because the person that sold me the ticket was like 16, which means that you wouldn't expect them to ask you for ID. But I was with someone else that was older so I got in.
I though it was boring though. I didn't realy like silence of the lambs either, it was boring as well.
Hi
...
As a citizen of germany/europe, i can just shake my head about the treatment of violence in the U.S.! it's just upside down compared to our country (europe) - and i think it's good the way it's done here. as it might be good to "save" children/kids from pornography, it's much more important to keep them from watching such disgusting and extreme violence!
thank god, i don't live in america
Am I the only one that noticed Hannibal Lecter never chopped off his own hand? Either Clarice or Hannibal had the key all along. Go see the movie again and see if you see what I saw. Watch carefully after the police arrive.
I'd rather see a film about a veggy hacker that flips out one day and starts eating Windows code until the security system in Gates' house stops working and all the little kiddies in the M$ educational system have to stop learning FUD.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
A book that Thomas Harris didn't want to write. A movie that Jodie Foster flat-out refused to participate in. A sluggish plot more reminiscent of a costume drama. I almost wet myself with fear.
can you hear the cash, Clarise?
What is up with the poppers? The depiction seemed like anti-drug paranoia at it's "finest". Please tell me there is something left out of the movie that explains that drivel. Doesn't anyone in hollywood actually do drugs anymore? *smile*
Why would Starling suddenly go lone wolf without the driving obession/facsination of the book? The change seemed a cowardly concession; Justice, Cop Ethics, Blah, Blah, Blah.
WTF is the ending handcuff scene? I don't get it.
Those were my major annoyances, one could nitpick for a long time though.
~~ What's stopping you?
I saw the film, and it had a LOT of strong features. The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful... if Hanz Zimmer doesn't win best soundtrack for this movie we'll know the awards are bought out. Aside from that though, I thought there was a drastic and somewhat unneeded change in Hannibal. In this film he was less outwardly vicious than in the first. Anthony Hopkins did an excellent job filling the character, but there were no "extreme BAMF" scenes in this movie for the character like there was in the first episode. One scene in particular sticks out in my mind... and that's the scene in the first movie when he's beating the cop to death inside the cage with that unbelievable vicious expression on his face. I liked Gary Oldman's role in the film, but I thought that the scene when he cuts his face off because Hannibal tells him to was a little cheesy... regardless of him being drugged. Julianne Moore didn't do the same caliber performance that Jodie Foster did. Moore's portrayal of Clarice Starling was just a little TOO gung-ho. I know that she's been in the FBI for 10 years busting bad guys since Buffalo Bill, but really... she has brass balls bigger than a platoon of 11 Bravo. I thought Jodie Foster was better simply because she shows raw emotion. When she's talking with Hannibal at the end of the first film over the phone there's a sense of terror and wonder in her voice. Julianne Moore's complete badass attitude when playing cat and mouse with Hannibal in the mall is a little unrealistic... especially considering she knows exactly how dangerous he really is. But in any case, I thought it was a good film, but it really could have been a masterpiece. And the dinner scene was kind of hokey too... maybe because I really didn't care too much for Liotta's performance. But in any case, enjoy the movie, it's good.
I'll start with my take on the movie. As with most Ridley Scott films, Hannibal is more conscerned with having great visuals and ambiance and an overall "feel" that it is with other aspects such as character development. That being said, I think Hannibal was still a good film in the sense that Alien was a good movie. Certainly Hannibal showed more depth than Alien, but people are correct in saying that it is not as cerebral (well, not if you count the brain eating scene!) as its predecessor. All things conscidered, I think it was a good movie and worth seeing if you can stomach it. (hmmmm...fava beans anyone?)
Now, for the core issue for me. This movie is hideously violent and stomach churning. I don't mean this as any kind of criticism of the movie, but it is. As adults, we know how to handle this. I was repulsed, yes, but when I went home that night I slept like a baby. This isn't because I'm some kind of desensitized monster, but simply because I know how to cope with it. I enjoy being frightened and repulsed just a little now and then. It's sort of like roller coasters. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but for some reason we enjoy it.
But what is truly repulsive is not what I saw on screen, but what I saw in the theater. There were quite a number of children in the theater! As the ending credits rolled a girl no more than 9 or 10 filed passed me with her "mother". I have to put this in quotes because this woman is not deserving of the title! It's only because of my sense of chivalry and my good moral sense that I didn't stand up and belt this woman! How unbelievable sick is that! What disturbed me even more was that the girl didn't seem to even bat an eye at what she saw. It truly frightens me that what makes a grown man in his 20s flinch would have no effect on a 10 year old girl! It makes me wonder how many movies like this she's taken her daughter to see. I sure as hell know I wouldn't have been calm like that as a child after having seen Hannibal. It just isn't healthy--mark my words, this girl is gonna have serious issues when she's older if she doesn't have them already.
The truly sick thing is that this woman will probably be among the first to express shock and outrage at the next school shooting. I'm not saying that TV/movie violence is the sole problem here, but can't we all agree that taking a child to see Hannibal is completely inapropriate and unhealthy for a child's psychological development? If our common sense and moral judgment has gone this far out the window, is it any wonder that this generation has gotten a bad rap for being a bunch of gun-toting thugs?
Anyway, I do have one question I'm curious about, do you guys think it's appropriate to bitch people out when they do something that terrible or should I just keep my mouth shut?
Manhunter was based on the first book by Thomas Harris, entitled Red Dragon. This is the book that started it all, introducing us to Lecter and a plot line that leads us along with ex-FBI forensic expert Will Graham. Silence of The Lambs was the second book, again written by Thomas Harris. Yes, Hannibal was the third installment, you guessed it, written by Thomas Harris. Harris is a great writer. His list includes the three mentioned above and another one on US Terrorism, Black Sunday. All great reads. Check them out.
ToiletDuk
Protector of the Wastes
I recently was on IMDb looking up the movie Hannibal. I found that there was a movie and a book before Silence of the Lambs named Manhunter. Check it out here
But the ending was the best part! I mean, the thing that made Silence of the Lambs so horrifying and wonderful was that Lecter was such a charming romantic (at times) when interacting with Starling, and the fact that she was drawn to him despite knowing what he was (psycho killer). The two of them coming together, esp. with Starling getting forced out of the FBI and each of them saving the other's life, it just makes sense. Sure, Lecter is twisted and immoral, but he's also the hero - look at those who oppose him, they're all clearly villanous characters, with the exceptions of Starling and Crawford. Really, if you look at their interactions with Lecter, they aren't even antagonistic towards him, they get along better with him than they do with other FBI/DoJ characters. But then, it's just a book...
itachi
Hmm, I wonder who the other two are.
From the restrained terror of Alien to this OTT farce? Sardinian pigs, Venetian libraries, trepanning gross-outs, Mutilated millionaires?
It's as ludicrous as "American Psycho's" list of facial treatments or the restaurant menu.
I *love* Bladerunner, Alien, Thelma & Louise, and it's not the gore that got me, Natural Born Killers had more credible and horrific violence... the brain frying was laughable.
I think that's my last for while from Chez Scott.