Review of Hannibal (2001) by Andruw F — 20 Feb 2017

Tries so hard to be disgusting that the end result is laughable... unlike its predecessor, which concentrated more on building the suspense of two intersecting plots. With the success of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, the failure of Hannibal Rising, and the TV show having two up seasons and one down third season, something about Hannibal is clearly evident: he's not that interesting on his own.

Hannibal works best as a supporting character, an antagonist's distant helper, or a protagonist's intimate one. Anthony Hopkins had a record breaking short amount of screen time to earn himself an Oscar in Silence of the Lambs.

Here, it's all him, and it's pretty boring. Amazingly, this poor installment of the franchise garnered a remake in the form of season 3 Hannibal, and my hopes for correcting past mistakes were nullified - it didn't work.

It suffers the same problem of turning Hannibal into a horror film monster rather than a uniquely horrifying ally. Hannibal is best when he's useful, worst when all he's worth is death. He got away in Silence of the Lambs, and he got away again in Hannibal, but at this point, nobody really cares.