Hannibal (film)

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Amazon.com

Yes, he’s back, and he’s still hungry. Ten years after The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, reprising his Oscar-winning role) is living the good life in Italy, studying art and sipping espresso. FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster), on the other hand, hasn’t had it so good—an outsider from the start, she’s now a quiet, moody loner who doesn’t play bureaucratic games and suffers for it. A botched drug raid results in her demotion—and a request from Lecter’s only living victim, Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited), for a little Q and A. Little does Clarice realize that the hideously deformed Verger—who, upon suggestion from Dr. Lecter, peeled off his own face—is using her as bait to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding, quite certain he’ll capture the good doctor.

Taking the basic plot contraptions from Thomas Harris’s baroque novel, Hannibal is so stylistically different from its predecessor that it forces you to take it on its own terms. Director Ridley Scott gives the film a sleek, almost European look that lets you know that, unlike the first film (which was about the quintessentially American Clarice), this movie is all Hannibal. Does it work? Yes—but only up to a point. Scott adeptly sets up an atmosphere of foreboding, but it’s all buildup for anticlimax, as Verger’s plot for abducting Hannibal (and feeding him to man-eating wild boars) doesn’t really deliver the requisite visceral thrills, and the much-ballyhooed climatic dinner sequence between Clarice, Dr. Lecter, and a third unlucky guest wobbles between parody and horror. Hopkins and Moore are both first-rate, but the film contrives to keep them as far apart as possible, when what made Silence so amazing was their interaction. When they do connect it’s quite thrilling, but it’s unfortunately too little too late. —Mark Englehart

Barnes and Noble

Sir Anthony Hopkins returns for seconds as Hannibal Lecter, the celebrated psychopath he introduced to popular culture in Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs (1991). This third film culled from author Thomas Harris’s series of books—Lecter first appeared in Michael Mann’s Manhunter (1986)—finds Ridley Scott behind the camera, and the Gladiator director gives the horrific feast a European flair. Julianne Moore (Magnolia) takes over as FBI agent Clarice Starling, stepping into shoes made comfortable by Jodie Foster in Silence. Starling hasn’t had it so well since we last saw her: A failed drug raid has resulted in her demotion, while Dr. Lecter has become a Renaissance man in Italy, surrounded by the finest of arts, fashion, and, er, food. But Lecter soon finds his fugitive vacation threatened by a triad of greed: Surviving Lecter victim Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited) wants revenge, Italian policeman Pazzi (Giancarlo Gianni) knows too much, and dirty FBI agent Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta) trades on Starling’s access to Hannibal for his own political means. As Starling attempts to distill this less-than-gourmet stew, Hannibal once again functions as her confidant, his cat-and-mouse games from Silence dropped for an almost affectionate display as Starling’s father figure. With a pulpy and grotesquely comical script cowritten by David Mamet and Steven Zaillian, Hannibal is much gorier than its predecessors; but thanks to Hopkins’s mesmerizing way with the character, it still tastes good ‘til the last bite. Patricia Kim O’Cone

Related works

Hannibal: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Hans Zimmer

Academy Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer has created a blood-pumping dramatic score for Hannibal that pulses with Wagnerian intensity. Sir Anthony Hopkins’s monologue on three tracks adds a dimension of hair-raising eeriness to the already deeply affecting and suspenseful instrumental backing. (Just hearing him first enunciate on the opener “Dear Clarice” sets up the Pavlovian sense of dread.) Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter is still on the prowl 7 years after FBI agent Clarice Starling first interviewed the criminally insane doctor (and 10 years since…

Hannibal: A Novel

Thomas Harris

• 1999 Stoker–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.49

Seven years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter escaped from custody, seven years since FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling interviewed him in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane. The doctor is still at large, pursuing his own ineffable interests, savoring the scents, the essences of an unguarded world. But Starling has never forgotten her encounters with Dr. Lecter, and the metallic rasp of his seldom-used voice still sounds in her dreams.

Mason Verger remembers Dr. Lecter, too, and is obsessed with revenge. He was Dr. Lecter’s sixth victim, and he has survived to rule his own butcher’s empire. From his respirator, Verger monitors every twitch in his worldwide web. Soon he sees that to draw the doctor, he must have the most exquisite and innocent-appearing bait; he must have what Dr. Lecter likes best.

Powerful, hypnotic, utterly original, Hannibal is a dazzling feast for the imagination. Prepare to travel to hell and beyond as a master storyteller permanently alters the world you thought you knew