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Hannibal
Movie Stats & Links

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Ray Liotta
MPAA Rated: R
Released By: MGM & Universal Pictures
Kiddie Movie: Unless you want them to be a serial killer.
Date Movie: She might get grossed out and hold your hand.
Gratuitous Sex: Nah.
Gratuitous Violence: You better believe it.
Action: Not really.
Laughs: There were some cute lines, although at gruesome times.
Memorable Scene: The brain scene.
Memorable Quote: "I should tell you I’m giving serious consideration to eating your wife."
Directed By: Ridley Scott
Produced By: Dino De Laurentiis, Martha De Laurentiis, Ridley Scott

Hannibal
A Movie Review

MPAA Rated - R

It's 2:11 Long

A Review by
The Dude on the Right
I still don’t know if I really liked "Hannibal" and that is what bothers me about writing this review. I wanted to separate it from "Silence of the Lambs" and see if it could stand on its own. I wanted to take the movie as a whole and see if it was a good thriller. And I wanted to have more gore like I was told would be. Hmm. I guess I’ll just say "Let’s go and see where this review leads us."

"Hannibal" picks up our "Silence of the Lambs" story about ten years later. Clarice (now played by Julianne Moore) is a kick-ass FBI agent, Hannibal (Anthony Hopkins) is hanging in Italy, and one man still wants to get Hannibal and he is Mason Verger (Gary Oldman), one of Hannibal’s victims who didn’t actually die. Mason has bucks but no face (he cut it off trying to please Hannibal) and uses his money to find out the whereabouts of Hannibal. Mason wants to catch Hannibal and torture the crap out of him, but he knows he needs help. So, with Clarise in a bind, he knows that Hannibal has feelings for her and will come to her aid, and with the help of a bad Justice Department dude, Paul (Ray Liotta), he gets Clarise set up, Hannibal comes to help, and Clarise is put in a situation of helping Hannibal get away or letting him get caught.

I think I’ll let the story end at that because there are too many spoilers in this movie that I don’t want to give away. Maybe I should give them away because I knew about most of them and was disappointed, but I’ll be nice and let you see things like disembowelings and violent pigs and make your own assessment.

There were a couple of challenges "Hannibal" faced and neither could be achieved. One was could it be true to the book, the other was could it live up to "Silence of the Lambs?" "Hannibal" had no chance on either count. It couldn’t stay true to the book everyone read because it would freak out too many people who didn’t read the book, and it couldn’t live up to "Silence of the Lambs" because "Silence…" kept Hannibal mysterious and behind bars, whereas "Hannibal" had him on the loose and gruesome. Anthony Hopkins still puts on one hell of a performance, the disfiguring make-up for Mason was incredible, and then there was the brain scene that, well, it’s the brain scene.

Where "Silence of the Lambs" was a great suspense film, "Hannibal" is really a horror film that takes things to the level horror films will need to go in order to get away from the slasher-film mentality – mix minds games with good gore.

I guess in the end I was a little disappointed and I’m still not sure why. Hopkins was great as Hannibal on the loose, Moore did the Clarise role well, but even as the credits started to role, well, something was just missing. I guess it’s just hard to mix true suspense and great horror and "Hannibal" just didn’t get there. It’s 2 ½ stars out of 5.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

 

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