Review of Red Dragon (2002) by Dirigiblepulp — 07 Dec 2016

It's amazing to me all the small ways in which a really good story can be sabotaged by poor direction and poor planning and also by being a shameless cash grab, let's be real. On the surface, this is a well cast film that is mostly accurate to the source material.

But the movie has no power, no darkness, no life. You start to realize that the cast that looked so good on paper suddenly seems wrong; Edward Norton looking dazed, pragmatic; Ralph Fiennes unsure of what kind of monster he is. Nothing works, it doesn't feel right, ever, and yet it never comes right out and announces itself as a bad movie. It's insidious that way--if only the film had been.