Count me amongst those who are unable to find anything much to like in the films of Harris’ ugly, sensationalist novels.
What a waste of time Hannibal was: little more than a string of baroque fantasies about torture and murder, with pretty lighting. IMO, it had all the content and weight of a sequel to Friday the 13th. To a man (or woman) I found the characters and their motivations absurd and unbelievable. And I found utterly distasteful the way the plot promoted the idea that Lecter’s treatment of his victims was somehow justified.
While I never liked Silence and Manhunter much either, at least those films at least tried to overlay the horror elements with a psychological exploration of the characters.
The worst part of the film was the ending. Whereas the book, for all its plain-and-simple cheekiness (that, I felt, destroyed any possibility of it being scary), did a decent job of elevating the brain-eating to a surrealistic climax, the movie made it into shlocky B-movie horror, more akin to Reanimator than to Silence of the Lambs. That’s what made SotL great; it took gore and horror and made a film that was more than the sum of its parts. The violence was almost art. Hannibal was pure entertainment fluff. True, I enjoyed the film for what it was nonetheless, but the ending was just ridiculously excessive. A local reviewer called the movie “Freddy Krueger trying to be Kubrick”, and I can’t agree more. Lecter was scary in SotL for what a contradiction he was-a genious that ate people. In that films, Hopkins was subtle and understated. Here, he was campy. He never would’ve been making light of the killing of Pazzi in the original like he did he. In short, this film will do well because a lot of people have forgotten what made SotL great, and simply want to see the long-awaited sequel. If this film had been made a year after SotL, it would have bombed.
-H.P.E.
P.S.: Yeah, the hand chopping scene was very Titus, which also pissed me off. How redundant.
Many people didn’t like the book’s ending because they felt it violated the character of Clarice. I thought that the ending of the movie is just as guilty of violating the character of Lecter. Cutting off his OWN hand? Wouldn’t happen. I realize that, in his own demented way, he “loved” Clarice (in that a sociopath can be said to love anything), but the whole concept of self-sacrifice would be totally alien to a mind like Lecter’s. At BEST, he would have dislocated her thumb and slid the handcuffs off her wrist.
Small continuity violation. In Manhunter, they said that 2 of Lecter’s victims survived. In Hannibal, Verger is said to be the only one who did.
Maybe, but in Manhunter, Will Graham is in a discussion concerning Lecter’s 2 surviving victims–one in a mental hospital in Denver, and one on a respirator in Baltimore (who we can assume is Verger).
I watched Manhunter this morning on DVD (one of those reissues that hypes the sequels). Graham’s only statement on “Lecktor”'s surviving victims is “Two didn’t die.”.
What I liked best about Manhunter is Graham’s struggle to deny that he thinks like a serial killer, even after he dips his ladle into Lecktor’s psyche to get clues about Francis Dolarhyde.
The Hannibal trailer hints that this will be a theme in that film, too, by recalling the warning from SotL; “Don’t let him inside your head.”.
I haven’t seen it yet, and I’ll be watching for that theme, which I assume is explored as Clarice become complicit in Lechter’s crimes.
I didn’t think it was a lobotomy, I thought he was high on something that made him not feel pain, etc. When Lecter peels back the membrane on the brain it looks intact, like he’s only cut the skull open so far.
I didn’t read the book but from what I hear, the brain scene becomes only schlock value in the movie, rather than the pivotal scene that brings Clarice over to the other side. It’s like they didn’t have time for that, and they are leaving it available for more sequels. Clarice and Lecter living happily ever after and not killing anymore wouldn’t make a very interesting sequel.
And the hadncuff thing is stupid (no more stupid than the locking refrigerator from 40+ years ago, or the multiline phone which doesn’t belong in a lake house); at least show her with a bloodied handcuff on.
I didn’t feel much suspense at all in this, especially since you know he won’t hurt Clarice, and everyone else is not sympathetic.
Hannibal is by far the worst film I’ve seen this year. It’s greatest flaw is a terrible script, with weak dialogue and bizarre and illogical plot. Thenks to the flaws of the script, Hopkins and Moore do not get a chance to shine. Ridley Scott’s direction lacke dthe inspiration to overcome the scripts weaknesses, and shock tactics do not suffice to make a good film.
The film is not scary, there is little feeling of suspense, and, unlike Silence of the Lambs, there is no duel between Lektor and Starling. Nor is there insight into criminal psychology. A waste of time.
He had a 2 pound meat cleaver, he could have broke the chain on the cuffs.
Mason verger’s announcement that dinner starts at 8:00 was no less absurd than Dr. Evil telling his son Scott that instead of shooting austin powers he is going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
I think instead of wild boars they should have had sharks with laser beams attatched to their heads.
See, in the book, right up to the very end I thought it was very possible that Hannibal was going to kill Clarice, he had some weird kind of theory that he could reverse entropy and bring back his sister by doing so. I still haven’t seen the movie, but I imagine it would be hard to keep people guessing like the book did - for one thing a movie doesn’t give you as much insight into the private thoughts of it’s characters, and secondly, in a movie you don’t expect the protagonist to die.
Sorry to dredge up such ancient history, but since they released the video on my birthday, I finally got to see this film.
It wasn’t as bad as I expected. I read the novel when it first came out and was horribly disappointed in Thomas Harris. To think that he took so long to write that made me pray that maybe he’d actually written the next one two and would surprise the world by releasing it six months later. Well, so much for that. Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs were so good and Hannibal was so … run of the mill. It was sad.
Anyway, they did a fair job of translating the book into a run of the mill movie.
The Good:
[li]Julianne Moore. Yum. That dress he put her in while she was out … hoo boy. Lecter’s exquisite taste just gets better.[/li][li]The reference to A Clockwork Orange when verger smack-smacks his mouth to signal he is ready to eat. I rolled on the floor.[/li][li]The good job they did dressing Verger … did you notice that the soles of his shoes were unscuffed?[/li][li]Lecter saying “ciao” … wonderful.[/li]
The Bad:
[li]By eliminating the breast-suckling at the end, they made the baby-in-her-arms beginning pointless.[/li][li]Sadly, Julianne Moore decided to do a Jody Foster impression for most of this movie.[/li][li]No Jack Crawford.[/li]
The Ugly, and my biggest compaint:
[li]Based on evidence in this film and from Gladiator, which I detested, it is clear to me that Ridley Scott wants to be as good a director as John Woo. He has adopted a good many of Mr. Woo’s favorite touches toward this end: pointless and needlessly heavy-handed use of slow motion chief among them. The problem is that Ridley Scott is a much better director than John Woo. I’ll put Alien and Blade Runner up against dreck like Mission: Impossible II and Face/Off any day of the week. So, I feel horribly sorry for him. He’s obviously suffered some serious failure of self-esteem.[/li]
OK. As you were.
I just saw this movie on video as well. While I thought it was entertaining there were just too many absurdities. Some have already been mentioned. But would someone explain to me:
The Italian detective (Pazzi) having to log into the FBI with a password just to see the 10 Most Wanted List. No way. Anybody can view it. Wouldn’t be too effective if it was a secret. And if he was seeking additional info, since when does the FBI hand out passwords to Italian cops?
Once Pazzi determines it is Hannibal, why does he go through the elaborate scheme to get the fingerprint instead of just taking him down? He has Lecter alone and could have easily zapped him then and there with a stun gun.
Finding Hannibal on the videotape? Yah right. Let’s say they narrowed down the perfume to three shops. Most stores only keep a few days backlog of tapes. Then they are re-used. Why not just interview the employees and show them Hannibal’s picture? Even if the stores had months of tapes, who has the time to sit and watch months of people walking by?
I thought that the “hang on while we trace the call” had finally been put to rest by Hollywood. But it is resurrected here. Maybe they never heard of caller ID.
This part bugged me, too, until I watched the deleted scenes on the DVD. One scene showed Pazzi calling in a favor from an ex-agent/cop (?) asking him for a working ID/password. The scene itself wasn’t very long, just the two men on the phone, so I don’t see why they didn’t just leave it in the film. It was especially puzzling since Starling traced the FBI login to Pazzi later in the movie.
I think Pazzi needed the fingerprint to prove to Verger that he indeed had identified Hannbial’s location so he could collect the reward. Verger only wanted an identification and the location of the sighting. He then planned to send in his own men to bring in Hannibal alive
I’m not sure if there is an answer to this one. Perhaps it is something from the book.
Speaking of the book, carnivorousplant posted earlier in the thread:
I’ve not yet read the book, so could someone please elaborate a little on this aspect of the novel? I’m very curious.
He and his sister were refugees in Central Europe in WWII. Starving Russian soldiers ate his sister; he was very slight and they spared him. That was what made him eat his victims. There was some thought apparently to replace his sister with Starling by killing her, but some relatioship formed instead.
