Hannibal

Some people never learn. I know I don?t. After plowing through Hannibal, the novel, I swore I wouldn?t give another penny to Thomas Harris and the Hannibal Lecter enterprise. Although I truly enjoyed The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon/Manhunter, I felt that Harris did not do justice to his characters in Hannibal. Although the movie stays truer to the characters? personalities, they are still caricatures of real people with real emotions and motivations.

If there were a real Hannibal Lecter, M.D., he would be coming after Harris and the scriptwriters for being crude. Hannibal the film, although more subtle and stylish than the book, is still only about as subtle as a good poke in the eye with a sharp stick. It?s like riding a roller coaster: you see the hills and dips coming a mile away, but you go on the ride anyway. Somehow I don?t picture Hannibal visiting Six Flags anytime soon, though.

Hannibal begins ten years after young Agent Starling kills Jamie Gumb and saves Senator Martin?s daughter. Hannibal has disappeared so effectively for the last ten years that he has been taken off the FBI?s Ten Most Wanted list. Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, Boogie Nights) has been slogging away at the FBI. Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, unbilled and unrecognizable), Hannibal Lecter?s only surviving victim and heir to a pork empire, plots his revenge. When Clarice is used as a scapegoat for a drug raid gone awry, Lecter breaks radio silence by sending Clarice an odd but supportive letter.

Thanks to a scheming Department of Justice official who?s on the take (Ray Liotta, Goodfellas), Clarice is placed on administrative duty and dangled as bait to get Lecter out of hiding. You can pretty much figure out what happens over the next 90 minutes. Somehow all the main characters run into each other in various ways, and there?s a considerable amount of blood (and wild boars) involved.


What?s good about this movie?
Sir Anthony has a meaty role to play, and he does it with a terrific mix of creepiness and wry humor. His Hannibal is a superhero and supervillain rendered in bold primary colors, and there are times where one almost feels like cheering for him. I half expected him to change into red-and-blue spandex by the movie?s end.

The cinematography is also very good. Flashbacks are done tastefully (well, as tastefully as possible) and effectively. And the use of evocative lighting and occasional slow motion give certain portions of the film an appropriately surreal effect.

What?s not so good about this movie?
Although it improves on the book slightly, the plot and the characters are still beyond belief. They?re all completely two-dimensional and are easily placed as Good Guys or Bad Guys from the moment they appear on screen. Anthony Hopkins is able to make this two-dimensionality work for Hannibal, but all of the other characters seem lifeless and shallow. (Never mind that by movie?s end most of the characters are lifeless anyway.) The problem was that their characters were so shallow that I really couldn?t get myself to care whether they lived or died.

One notable exception is Ginacarlo Giannini, who plays Francesco Pazzi, a detective in Florence who is the first to suspect that the charismatic Dr. Fell may not be what he seems. Pazzi has clearly married out of his league, and he is torn by conflicting desires to please his wife (Francesca Neri), to clear his family name (an ancestor was killed by the Medicis 500 years ago), and to capture the infamous Hannibal Lecter.

Poor Julianne Moore. Her Clarice Starling is stiff, wooden, and uninteresting. I couldn?t believe that this Clarice was the woman that drew Hannibal out of hiding. Absolutely no chemistry between Starling and anyone else in the film, either. Although she improved slightly in the last 15 minutes of the movie, I was beyond caring at that point.

Improvement on the book?
Don?t worry, I won?t give any secrets away. They could have called this movie ?Hannibal?s Top 10 Gross Ways to Kill People When They P-i-s-s Him Off By Being Crude.? One major improvement is that the film eliminates several subplots, notably two threads with bizarre offensive lesbian stereotypes. The streamlining moves the film along a bit better (if you think the movie is disjointed, read the book). The majorly gross stuff from the book is all in the movie in technicolor, never fear, although the ending is changed a bit.

Although there?s already been a bit of debate about this, the ending is, in my view, a bit more true to character. Of course, it leaves things open for yet another installment.

Another big improvement was the elimination of the Explaining of Hannibal. Here, the movie lets Hannibal be Hannibal, and I think it works much better without getting bogged down in too much psychobabble.

Unless you loved the book, there isn?t really much point in seeing the movie. Then again, that?s what I told myself upon finishing the book, and I got suckered into seeing it anyway. It?s not worth watching on video- a story this outrageous, with gallons of bloodshed, needs a large screen.

I did get caught up in the movie, groaning and laughing with the rest of the audience. But it?s predictable, much the same way Rocky Horror is predictable the 10th time around. It?s neither scary nor suspenseful. Like a roller coaster, it?s full of obvious and extreme twists and turns, and when the ride?s over, you get off and nothing much is different, except you have a sore neck and a slightly queasy feeling in your stomach. Ultimately, it?s worth around 1-1/2 stars out of five. Go on an empty stomach.