Rating- * * * (3/5)
Making the sequel to a movie that was instantly declared a classic is always difficult, but it can be pulled off. When Francis Ford Coppola decided to make a sequel to his critically acclaimed The Godfather, critics were chomping at the bit to tear it down. Fortunately for Coppola, The Godfather, Part II was declared just as great as the first (greater by some) and became the only sequel to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture. Then there are those sequels that don’t quite live up to their predecessors. Steven Spielberg’s follow up to Jurassic Park was highly anticipated at the box-office, but left a sour taste in the mouths of audiences. The real difficulty in making a good sequel comes in creating something new and original while still maintaining the qualities that made the first film great; most sequels lose one or the other. Hannibal comes very close to achieving greatness as a sequel but falls just short. In fact, in lesser hands this film could have easily fallen flat on its face. If you don’t know by now, Hannibal is the sequel to Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, winner of Best Picture of 1991 at the Oscars, in which a rookie FBI agent named Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) gets help finding a serial killer by a criminal genius, Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). Hannibal is a serial killer who is actually quite sophisticated and polite; he listens to classical music, he enjoys fine art, and he has wonderful social skills. The only thing is that he has a natural, uncontrollable urge to kill and eat his victims, making him a fascinating subject for research. Hannibal became one of the most interesting characters in movie history because on the one hand, he is a terrifying, violent killer, and on the other hand he is a very likable, amazingly intelligent man. When Thomas Harris, author of the book that spawned the first film, wrote a sequel, it was decided almost immediately that a sequel would be filmed. However, problems developed early on when Jodie Foster decided she wouldn’t appear in the sequel because of the ending in the book. Writer David Mamet changed the ending in the screenplay, but Foster still refused to do the film and a search began to find the new Clarice Starling. After many considerations, Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights) was chosen and the great action/horror director Ridley Scott pegged as the director. Anthony Hopkins was brought back to reprise his role as Dr. Lecter and several other respected actors signed on in supporting roles, including Ray Liotta as an ill-fated FBI man. The problems in this film stem not from any lack of talent, certainly, but from inherent problems with the story itself. Harris’s novel is so different from the original that we lose the charm and originality of the first film. In Hannibal, Dr. Lecter has been missing for ten years and Clarice, after becoming the female FBI agent with the most kills in history (not a good thing), has been confined to a desk job in the FBI basement. She has become noticeably gloomier, less excited about her job, and more jaded about life in general. One day, she receives a letter from her old acquaintance, Dr. Lecter, who tells her he is living in Florence as a rare art dealer and informs her of a plot by a crazed millionaire and former victim of Hannibal to capture and kill the good doctor. Clarice decides that finding Dr. Lecter could be the key to bringing her career back on the right track and goes to see the millionaire. He is wheelchair-ridden and has no lips or eyelids, thanks to Dr. Lecter’s antics, and has become a depraved, single-minded man who can only think of getting revenge on Lecter. He plans to capture Lecter and feed him to a group of rare, flesh-eating pigs in a kind of sickly ironic vengeance for the millionaire (played fantastically by Gary Oldman in an unbilled role). This is the setup for a dramatic search to find Lecter and Lecter’s attempts to get away and catch a meal every now and then. The gross-out factor is through the roof in this movie and those with a weak heart or a weak stomach should avoid it at all cost. But, if you can enjoy or at least handle some of the stomach-wrenching scenes then it is worth seeing this movie. The characters, although not as likable as in the previous film, are very well-developed and it is very believable that they would have become the way they are over the past ten years. This film is also less scary than the first film, but much more shocking. In fact, this is the only film I can recall making an audible groan at in the theater during one of the final scenes. The scene I am speaking of is probably the most disturbing scene in motion picture history, or at least in the top three, and there is definitely something wrong with you if you are not affected by this scene. If you liked The Silence of the Lambs, you will definitely like where the film takes the characters and you will also like the dark, freak-show-like atmosphere. If you are not a fan of dark suspense films or of horrifyingly disgusting films then you may want to pass on this one. Overall, though, this is a good, creatively shocking film and for a movie with not much of a screenplay to work with, Ridley Scott and his crew should be commended on their job.