Hannibal (2001, DVD)

I am being very generous by giving this film 3 out of 5 stars. It was a bad sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. Which is one of the best suspense/horror films of all time. Anthony Hopkins tried his best in a poorly written movie. I also did not like the way they changed "Clarice's". I wish they would have brought back Jody Foster, she nailed that role. To be fair I will close with a few positve notes. Anthony Hopkins and Ray Liotta acted well. And it was filmed in beautiful locations, such as Italy and Florida. I strongly urge people to either rent this movie or purchase it, watch it, sell it. It's not worth keeping.

This special edition of "Hannibal" comes with two discs. The standard commentaries, featurettes, deleted and alternate scenes, and stills. It’s two hours and eleven minutes long, and even if you’ve never seen “Silence of the Lambs,” the prequel, it’s surely a movie to keep you “on the edge of your seat.”

Hannibal gets a four out of five from me, and here’s why:

The good things: Anthony Hopkins is back. Do you need another reason? Joking aside, Hopkins continues to do an amazing role as Lecter, giving us the chills as he always does. Now he’s out of his cage, and who knows what he’ll do now.

Ridley Scott also does a wonderful job as director. The characters shine with emotion, and the scenes are shot with grace and careful planning.

Hans Zimmer has some creepy music set up for us in the movie, reminding us of how bad Lecter really is.

The screenplay is well written as well, if you like gore and disturbing images. You’re going to find a lot of that in “Hannibal,” more so than in “Silence of the Lambs.” It’s rated “R” for a reason.

Now the screenplay was well written up to the end, which is where we’ll go into:

The bad things: the ending of the movie I found controversial. No spoilers here, but I liked the ending they originally had, the one that Jodie Foster said needed to be changed before she would consider playing Agent Starling. Even after they changed it she couldn’t play the role because she was too busy with two other projects. Though I’m sure others will tell me I’m crazy for liking the original ending better (it was never shot), the ending Thomas Harris had for his novel, but it gave the story more substance that way. The way the movie ends makes the whole movie really have no point.

Julianne Moore was also a drawback. I really would have liked Jodie Foster to play Starling, and though Moore does a good job, it’s still not quite the same without her.

Again, the way the movie ended provided no reason for the story to exist. If the ending had been filmed the way the novel was written, despite the bigger controversy over it, I think it would have made the movie better.

Many of the deleted scenes worked for the movie and should have been left in.

“Hannibal” is still a good movie, and you can watch it without having seen “Silence of the Lambs,” but seeing the prequel makes it even more enjoyable. A great flick.