Review of Hannibal (2001) by Danny A — 04 Aug 2012

A good but not great sequel to Silence Of The Lambs. Anthony Hopkins was as superb as ever in his role as Hannibal Lecter. However, the material he was given to work with was not as good as Silence of the Lambs. In fairness, perhaps there was no way it could be. In SOTL, he was somehow more foreboding, more of a sort of superhuman monster; in Hannibal, he's more accessible, a guy you meet on the street. Maybe it was impossible to maintain the mystery of Lecter that we saw in SOTL because of the risk of doing a rehash.

Starling's character, on the other hand, fell flat in this film. In SOTL, Foster perfectly portrayed Starling and evoked feelings of sympathetic grief, Julianne Moore's Clarice evoked nothing. I do not necessarily blame Moore, this could be due to writing and/or directing. Obviously, though SOTL focused mainly on Starling's character, Hannibal focuses on, well, Hannibal. Still, that's no excuse for what was done to Starling.

The story was much weaker in Hannibal than in SOTL. It almost seemed like an excuse to present us with the characters, rather than a story in and of itself. In terms of horror, I think Hannibal is on the same level as its predecessor. Neither movies are actually that scary, but they occasionally reach a fairly high level of disturbing. They are both intriguing movies. This one is a little less so than Silence, but it's a sufficient piece of thriller filmaking.