Let's start with what the press-pack said, shall we? That'll get a lot of the basics out of the way swiftly without me having to rehash it all. Then I can cut to the chase.

Press pack
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"Ten years later, he is still her most terrifying nightmare. Ten years later, she is still his fondest fantasy."

"There is a grace to his life now. An elegance which suits him nicely. And yet, he thinks of her and wonders if his life can ever be complete without her."

"Her strength comes from a regimen of discipline and a clarity of purpose. Yet there is a shadow that follows her everywhere. A faint distraction - making her feel ... vulnerable."

"Hannibal continues the story begun in 'Silence of the Lambs'. Ten years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) escaped from custody, ten years since FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) interviewed him in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane. The doctor is now at large in Italy, gloriously at liberty in an unguarded world. But Starling has never forgotten her encounters with Dr. Lecter - his cold voice still haunts her dreams."

"Mason Verger remembers Dr. Lecter too. Verger was Dr. Lecter's sixth victim, and, though hideously disfigured, has survived. The solitary heir to his family's fortune, he uses the resources of his inheritance to exact his revenge. Verger realises that in order to draw Lecter out into the open, he must dangle an irresistible bait: Clarice Starling."

The job of the bumph-writer for a movie is to make something sound alluring without giving too much of the plot away. The job normally entails simplifying a lot of the plot elements within the drama, hinting at the kind of film it is likely to be and - while we are at it - generally lying about the quality of the movie. In this case, however, there is no need for hyperbole - the film will sell itself. There's no need for lying - the film is bloody entertaining. But most importantly, there really is no need to spell out the plot. Everything you need to know about this film is spelt out in the title.

HANNIBAL.



"Hannibal": The Book
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The film was a book and a strange book it was at that. Not even the critics - normally not short of a word or two - really knew what to make of it. Some lauded it, some slated it. In fact the only thing that they all agreed on was that it was going to sell an absolutely vast amount of copies and make Thomas Harris even more stinking-rich than he already was. Possibly too rich.

The critics' problems all centred around the plot. Hannibal is free, roaming around Florence, while Clarice is finding the core of her existence at the FBI systematically undermined on a daily basis. She is near the edge, and Hannibal's getting edgy. When a policeman in Florence stumbles upon Lecter and decides to make good on the reward for his capture (put up by Mason Verger, one of Hannibal's victims), the Doctor takes the opportunity to make himself public again. Clarice, now no longer mouse to Hannibal's man-eater, takes up the hunt with a vengeance.

All sounds well and good, but the problems came with the bits of the plot that they couldn't talk about - that *I* can't talk about - without completely destroying the experience for you. The bits that involve asking about the role of the man-eating pigs, the cranial saws, the frying pans, the brains, and who ends up going to the Opera at the end.

These parts of the plot caused considerable consternation - they're not entirely plausible, the foreshadowing hasn't led you to think that this was *THAT* kind of film, they are certainly morally 'dubious' at best. And more to the point, with everyone eagerly expecting a sequel to 'Silence of the Lambs', they were swiftly declared unfilmable.

But to give you a sense of the way in which the plot develops, let me just say that the hero of the piece isn't Clarice Starling, it is.....

HANNIBAL



"Silence of the Lambs": The Oscar Winning Thriller
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But of course, working with this source material wasn't the only problem that confronted Director Ridley Scott. He also had the spectre of the Oscar-winning Jonathan Demme's 'Silence of the Lambs' to work with. And the fact that Jodie Foster had decided not to undertake the role. But really, who did it matter who played Clarice. She wasn't the hero. She never had been. Because (you've guessed it), the hero was right from the beginning:

HANNIBAL.



HANNIBAL THE MOVIE
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So here's where we get to the meat of the matter. Hannibal is the hero of the movie, and that causes as many problems as it makes for compelling viewing.

And the film *is* utterly compelling. It might make more sense to the person who has read the book (and almost everyone has, if we're blunt), but it should remain terrifying and fascinating to everyone - although of course it helps considerably if you've seen or read and remembered 'Silence of the Lambs'. There are shocks, spills, there's a fair amount of gore and some startlingly horrible sights, presented with the energy and flair for violence (as well as camera work) that Scott recently brought to Gladiator.

And the problems? Hopkins is too good, Hannibal is too charismatic, too skillful, too witty, HAVING TOO MUCH FUN. He can be standing in front of a man who has been tied up, gagged and alone, with a rope tied around his neck by a high window. Hannibal can have a knife. You can expect Hannibal to use it to disembowel him prior to throwing him from the window. But when Hopkins says 'okey dokey', you will probably laugh. And laugh a lot. The man has so much STYLE. He's the Indiana Jones of serial killers.

In contrast, Clarice is flat and lifeless - a kind of chiselled stone that looks very attractive and can be quite dangerous when put to work, but otherwise completely without energy or charisma. She sits in an office for the first half of the film, has only the most rudimentary sense of being a feeling human being and what appears to be a fairly mechanical and robotic sense of morality. While she is entirely believable, I'm afraid, frankly, that she's nowhere near as much fun.

Scott plays their relationship as a romance, Hannibal feints forwards, Clarice retreats shyly (and vice versa). But all the time, Hannibal is the GREAT BIG SEXY FLIRT, and Clarice is the rather serious suitor with the bad suit and hair who never gets the girl in movies in the 80s. It's all so horribly one-sided.

In the end this all comes clear in the finale of the movie. I'm not going to tell you the ending, even though I know there are an awful lot of people who would be fascinated to know. What I will say, though is that it IS different to the book, although to a lesser extent than you might think. More scenes are kept than you will think possible, although they are cast in a rather different light.

And is the ending successful? Is the MOVIE successful? Well even after all my petty sniping: pretty much, yes - but because it revels too much in Hannibal's antics, it's finally too simple and slight a confection. There's little moral conflict here, just amoral delight - which makes for a sensational couple of hours but a slightly metallic aftertaste.

So while it's not going to win ANYONE another Oscar (even in these quality-lite times), when you go into the movie theatre you can take it from me, with (or without) some fava beans and a nice Chianti, that you'll find it BLOODY entertaining...

Enjoy it.

Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age