Hannibal (2001) Review

Hannibal (2001) Review

The Silence of the Lambs was a perfect horror-thriller, so what could possibly be done to improve on it with the sequel, Hannibal? Well, the producers certainly did everything they could. Ridley Scott was brought on to direct, and he made one of the scariest movies of all-time, Alien. The screenplay was written by David Mamet, who wrote one of my favourite movies ever, The Edge (also starring Anthony Hopkins), and then rewritten by Steve Zaillian. What did he write? Oh, just a little Academy Award-winning movie you might have heard of called Schindler’s List. Though Jodie Foster declined to return to play Clarice Starling, we have Julianne Moore in the role, an actress who is very good in her own right, and of course Anthony Hopkins is back as Hannibal Lecter. So…what went wrong? 

Hannibal is a very problematic sequel. It’s largely setup, with little payoff. The story is pretty straight forward; Starling is reassigned to Lecter’s case by Mason Verger, played by Gary Oldman, who is the only one of Lecter’s victims to not be killed by him, though Lecter paralyzed him and had him mutilate his own face under the influence of drugs. Verger is a despicable character, and his physical condition does nothing to make him sympathetic. Oldman is under heavy makeup, which looks decent, but is a little too extreme to look fully convincing, and his performance is a little exaggerated, and sometimes comes off as goofy. 

As for Julianne Moore, she tries to do Jodie Foster’s accent, but can’t quite get it there. She simply isn’t Jodie Foster, who so brilliantly captured the character in Silence of the Lambs; having her alongside Hopkins just doesn’t work the same. And what of Hopkins as Hannibal the Cannibal? He’s one of the few highlights of the movie, but it takes forever for him to show up. Having the two leads separate for so much of the movie made the whole thing more tedious than it needed to be. 

The Silence of the Lambs was a suspenseful, unpredictable film, but Hannibal is sorely lacking suspense. While Starling searches for him in the states, Lecter has undertaken a new identity, Dr. Fell, in Florence, and a detective discovers who he really is, so tries to capture him alone in order to obtain the bounty put out by Mason Verger (who wants Lecter for his own nefarious revenge). Right from the first scene in which Lecter and the detective interact, you know what will happen: Lecter will catch on to what he’s up to, and kill him. Yeah, when he eventually does, it’s horrific and violent, but not at all surprising. 

So what are the positive aspects of this movie, aside from Hopkins? The cinematography is distinct and does work to build some unease. The lighting is often overly harsh, and the sets look washed out or gloomy. The gore effects are sick and convincing, and the opening action scene makes for a reasonably exciting way to kick things off. Howard Shore composed a great score for Silence of the Lambs, which lent a lot to its haunting atmosphere. Hans Zimmer did the score for Hannibal, and it more than lives up to Shore’s, it’s just unfortunate that it’s in service of a far less excellent movie. 

I think the scariest thing about Hannibal is the poster, which has nothing to do with what’s in the movie. It is one of the film’s fundamental problems: it’s just not scary. If it couldn’t be a thrilling thriller, it could’ve at least tried to be a straight-up horrific horror movie. The worst part is, whenever director Ridley Scott tries to make something scary, he uses ineffective techniques that make it obvious how hard he’s trying. There are cheesy zoom-ins, and that annoying, shaky slow-motion is used way too much. Worst of all is how some of the key scares come off as funny. Horror can be a difficult balance; it’s a fine line, between not going far enough and not evoking a reaction, and going too far over and becoming comedic. For me, this happens mainly toward the end, though for some, maybe the grotesque and gory moments would evoke the intended reaction.  

I’m not really sure what went wrong with Hannibal. On paper, seeing all those involved behind the camera and in front makes it sound like a sure-fire sequel, yet it’s a step down in practically all regards. Even if you look at it as its own film, without considering what came before or after, it’s still a largely slow-paced, uneven, and boring affair. Perhaps it lies in the source material. As of writing this review, I haven’t read the novel, but from what I gather, it made for a much less straight-forward adaptation than Silence of the Lambs did. 

It seems every time I revisit Hannibal, I like it less (especially when compared to another adaptation…more on that soon, though), but I wouldn’t flat-out recommend skipping it. If you want a gorier Hannibal Lecter film, or want to see some more development in the relationship between Lecter and Starling, it does have all that, it just takes a while to get there, and never reaches its full potential.