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Hannibal Movie Review

Hannibal is a 2001 horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore. It’s a passable, but weak sequel.

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“People don’t always tell you what they are thinking.

They just see to it that you don’t advance in life“

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Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who was arrested for cannibalism, now lives at an unknown location under a new identity. One of the victims, Mason Verger, makes an elaborate plan to find him and avenge himself. I am not a huge fan of ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, but I have to admit that that movie clearly had a better story and far stronger character development than this frustrating sequel.

Gone is the interesting central dynamic between Clarice and Lecter in favor them being separated throughout the vast majority of this film. That wasn’t a good choice at all and it negatively impacted the entire movie.

Julianne Moore is pretty good as always, but I missed Jodie Foster in the role. Moore, however, is not a problem. The script is. The movie failed to properly develop her as a person and she was much more memorable and better realized before.

Lecter fared better, though this was a much less subtle performance and writing than in the original. But Hopkins was undeniably having a blast playing the role and he was so memorable. His scenes managed to at least elevate the movie to the place of intrigue and grotesquery while the other sections were tiresome and uninteresting.

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Hannibal is very well crafted on a technical standpoint. The cinematography is excellent, the score is terrific and the acting performances are uniformly strong. Zimmer’s score is delightfully moody, complementing the gross imagery and eerie tone on display so well. The atmosphere is excellent, but the pacing left a lot to be desired. The whole middle section is uninvolving and boring. It’s a very perverse and gross movie, sometimes bordering on poor taste and clearly intended to shock audiences.