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I’ve got one word for this movie: ick. I spent most of the time with my face buried in a pillow, trying to filter out the gore. It didn’t work.
Hannibal is the long-awaited sequel to the 1991 Academy Award winning classic, The Silence of the Lambs. Julianne Moore stars as Clarice Starling, previously played by Jodie Foster (who, rumor has it, turned down her role in the sequel because it was too gruesome). Clarice, a struggling FBI agent, gets a chance to rebuild her reputation when she’s returned to the case of Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, who had escaped years earlier from the institution where he had been held.
Lecter has built a new life for himself in Florence, but he’s decided (for reasons not exactly known) to “come out of retirement.” As Clarice once again tries to hunt down Lecter, she’s racing against Florence’s Detective Pazzi, who’s in it for the reward money – and she’s being carefully followed by Mason Verger (Gary Oldman), Lecter’s only surviving victim, who’s looking for revenge.
Hannibal is all about the gore and shock value. In the first scene, we’re introduced to Verger, who is horribly disfigured, since his face has been removed (if you want to know how it happened – just wait – you’ll get to see that, too). And that’s only the beginning. As you sit there, helplessly burying your face in a pillow, begging character after character not to put themselves in compromising situations with Lecter, they just keep doing it – and they keep dying in disgusting ways.
So if you must see Hannibal, never say I didn’t warn you. There’s no real suspense. Not even that much of a story. It’s just gore. The best advice I can give to anyone who liked The Silence of the Lambs is just to keep it at that. Don’t let Hannibal spoil it.
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