Hannibal (2001)

It took 10 years to make a sequel to the masterful "Silence of the Lambs". Actually, the Hannibal movies started in 1986 with Michael Mann's "Manhunter", based on the book "Red Dragon", where Brian Cox played Lecter, but not to much success. But when 5 years later the second book was turned into film, with Hopkins, huge success and 5 Oscars, then the craze was on. But as Jodie Foster and Jonathan Demme were not happy with the screenplay for "Hannibal", the project dragged on for years to many re-writes. Finally Foster and Demme left the movie, and it took a lot of persuasion and Ridley Scott to make Hopkins return. They thought that they could make it out of Hopkins alone. They thought wrong. That is, Hopkins is great but the rest of the movie can't hold by itself. The director is very good, sure, one of the last great ones, but has the problem of not writing his own screenplays. He cannot make something fabulous if the screenplay sucks. And this is what happens. This is a movie where there is a phone call from the States to Italy and in both countries is the same time of the day. This is a movie where the Italians speak between themselves in english, and an American tourists speaks in english in Italy to everybody on the street. This is a movie whose first half is full of those cliché establishing shots like "this is the scene where we have to prove this politician is corrupt", "this is the scene we have to prove that Clarice is a thought character", all full of horrible lines. The story is not that bad really, but when they open their mouths the sentences are incredibly bad. 10 years have passed. Lecter was never seen again. One of Lecter's victims who survived is a rich and mutilated Gary Oldman (great performance), obsessed in finding him. Clarice is played by Julianne Moore, who, although acceptable in her role, was so preoccupied in mimicking Foster's peculiar accent that she forgot to give expressiveness to all the sentences and to her face. A drug bust goes wrong and she gets suspended. There is also a corrupt politician (Ray Liotta, a useless character except to give a nice little victim to Lecter), who accelerates her downfall. So, how does Lecter fit in here? Actually he doesn't. All of a sudden he turns up in Florence, Italy, and Oldman, Clarice and an Italian policeman (Giancarlo Giannini) all suddenly become hot on his trail. The story falls short and it only becomes interesting when Hopkins appears, and then yes, all his scenes are great. Pity that the delicacy and psychological tension that Lamb's had was replaced here by a sort of clever brutality, many times unjustified. Off goes Lecter to the States to "save" Clarice and face Liotta and Oldman, after he disposes so beautifully of Gianni, although everybody in the world except Gianni knew what he was in for, in the style of the most stupid Friday 13-Halloween-Scream horror movies. There is some tension, and some action, and some shocks, some of them interesting and some just plain stupid (as the way Hopkins kills Liotta), with little new things to add, but the movie gains in the connection, almost of love, between Lecter and Clarice. That Scott showed well. In the end, "Hannibal" was a failure, and one can understand that by seeing the movie and the way it flows awkwardly. It is worth watching as a continuation of the study of Hopkins portrayal of Lecter. The rest of the movie, that is, every scene where he does not appear, is irrelevant. Hopkins alone saves this one. Scott disappointed because he failed to see the various lacks in the screenplay. Much better in everyway is the end of the Hopkins trilogy, and the remake of "Manhunter", 2002's "Red Dragon" directed by the great Brett Ratner, my favourite young director. See Lambs and then skip to Red Dragon, and only if you have nothing else to do, or if you are very interested in the character of Hopkins, see "Hannibal".