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| Pallid and with ominously reddish eyes, the title character lures on this spooky poster for Ridley Scott's Hannibal |
FBI special agent Clarice Starling is vilified after causing the loss of five lives in a botched drug operation. Subsequently she is turned to the hunt for cannibal-on-the-run Dr. Hannibal Lecter. - The trail leads to Florence, but disfigured, wealthy Mason Verger catches him first.
Hannibal is written by David Mamet (The Edge (1997)) and Steve Zaillian (Jack the Bear (1993)), based on the same-titled 1999 novel by Thomas Harris (Red Dragon (1981)), and directed by English master filmmaker Ridley Scott (The Duellists (1977)), whose 12th feature it is. It is the 2nd sequel in the Lecter franchise, which began with Manhunter (1986) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Scott manages, - with what feels like a dreadful script, - to stay far above the psyche and deeper motivations of all the major characters. The action-packed beginning is out of place, and the cliches used are many and dumb. The scenes in Hannibal are almost as blunted in their design as the film's cannibal center, still somehow elegantly acted by Anthony Hopkins (Instinct (1999)). But you will likely remember at least one grisly scene from Hannibal for years after.
The basic idea of building a horror-thriller around the depravity of the higher sciences is good; so much more the pity that it drowns in ugly devices and uninventiveness here.
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Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 87 mil. $
Box office: 351.6 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.04 times its cost)
[Hannibal was released 9 February (Canada, USA, Italy) and runs 132 minutes. The sequel was long in the making due to the slow novel writing of Harris. Producer Dino de Laurentiis, who held the rights to the Lecter character after making Manhunter, bought the rights for a record 10 mil. $. Jonathan Demme, director of Silence of the Lambs, and Jodie Foster, the film's Starling, rejected the sequel due to what they perceived as excesses and "trampling" the Starling character in the novel. Scott on the other hand called the novel, "rich in all kinds of ways", but asked to and was given the go-ahead to change its ending. Hopkins was paid 15 mil. $ for his performance and suggested Moore for the Starling part, which she was paid 3 mil. $ for. Gary Oldman asked to go unbilled as Mason Verger upon being denied a prominent credit alongside Hopkins and Moore. Shooting took place from May - August 2000 in North Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC and Italy. The film opened #1 to a 58 mil. $ first weekend in North America, the 3rd biggest ever, where it retained the #1 position for another 3 weekends and spent another 2 weeks in the top 5 (#2-#4) and grossed 165 mil. $ (46.9 % of the total gross). It was the highest North-American opening for a horror movie until It (2017). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 30.9 mil. $ (8.8 %) and Germany with 17.3 mil. $ (4.9 %), - perhaps, because the film's Box Office Mojo tally is missing several key markets. It was the 10th highest-grossing movie worldwide of the year. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. It took in 87 mil. $ on video rentals in North America alone. Scott returned with Black Hawk Down (2001). Hopkins returned in Hearts in Atlantis (2001); Moore in Evolution (2001). Hannibal is rotten at 39 % with a 5.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Hannibal?
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