Synopsis: the sequel to the acclaimed Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal is a big budget production that totally fails to deliver; not only is it not as clever as its predecessor, it is not even a splatter or suspense or horror movie, just a totally boring time waster. Do not be fooled by the media hype, and particularly the stories about people throwing up in cinema and being mentally scarred for the rest of their lifes because of the brain - eating scene: in the movie it just comes across as laughably bad SFX. Why so many people in this forum are claiming that H is "not all bad" and "worth watching on the big screen", etc., is beyond me; and it is not "so bad it's good" either, it is just plain boring. I normally respect other people's opinion, but in this case I have to say that they clearly can not tell **** from Shine - Ola. Maybe they have fallen prey to the media hype, maybe they have never seen a Ridley Scott movie before and were impressed by his excessive use of back lighting, smoke and the ubiquitous AC fans. H is totally devoid of suspense; instead we get endless scenes of Lecter swanning through an English - speaking Firenze, a totally unconvincing and uninvolving plot with more holes than a fishing net (after seeing H, I actually lay awake half of the night trying to find all the holes in the plot, and when I wrote them down I quickly filled 6 pages in small type before forcing myself to stop). Rather than wasting your time and money on seeing it on the big screen, I would advise you to wait until it comes on TV in a couple of years; and then to go to bed early.

1 / 10.

Below are a couple of extra bones I have to pick with Hannibal:

- H _is_ the sequel to SOTL, despite what some people in this forum are claiming. And even though SOTL was a very tough act to follow, there are sequels which _are_ en par with their predecessors (SOTL itself was the sequel to Michael Mann's "Manhunter", based on Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon", and even though the first episode was a very enjoyable film, SOTL was even better; another example would be the Alien series initiated by H's director Ridley Scott -- so much for the theory of diminishing sequels). In any case, being a sequel is no excuse for a film being utter crap.

- This movie has a renowned director, it is based on a novel by the same author as SOTL, the cast is strictly A - list, great cinematography, big budget, first - rate script writers, yadda, yadda, yadda, and the end result is simply a fart in the church. So what went wrong? I think a lot of the blame has to go to the film's producer, Dino DeLaurentiis. Here is my interpretation: DDL produced "Manhunter", which, despite of all its qualities, was a commercial flop. Disappointed, he gave the rights for the Hannibal Lecter character to Orion -- for free, allowing Jonathan Demme to make SOTL, and the rest is cinema history. DDL then had to wait for ten more years (he is now 81) until Thomas Harris finally came up with the sequel novel. I think at this point DDL had lost all interest in making a good movie and was desperate to finally get his slice of the the cake before he pops his cork.

- Another aspect that I find thoroughly annoying about this flick is that it is being given so much undeserved hype in the media; I mean, it is boring, yet one of the highest - grossing productions ever, so there is no need to give it free publicity. And while most reviewers harp on about how Dantesque the scenes in Firenze are and why Jodie Foster did not participate, the simple fact that this movie is an utter, utter, UTTER flop goes unmentioned. But there is more: not only is Hannibal being hyped through the roof, it is also being used as a media agenda setter for a plethora of "documentaries" (usually the left - overs from similar productions in the wake of SOTL) about serial killers, cannibalism and profiling. However, not only does H not even pretend to be realistic; Lecter has also ceased to be a serial killer (he now only kills out of necessity, or to help Clarice Starling), profiling is not even mentioned (because we already know HL, so there is no need to create a profile) and there is also no cannibalism: Lecter feeds the drugged - up Paul Krendler his own brain, so that makes it (erm) unaware vivo - auto - cannibalism. Try making a documentary out of that.

- Much has been said about the acting: mainly whether Julianne Moore can replace Jodie Foster, and Anthony Hopkins (who plays the lead Hannibal Lecter) is usually given a lot of praise. I think all of these discussions are moot. There are several of my favourite actors in this movie (namely Liotta, Oldman and Moore) but the script simply does not give them anything to work with. Same for Hopkins: there is no development in his character, and he is not being challenged in any way. And by the way, he plays nearly identical characters in all of his movies, only that in H he has to do the odd bit of murder and is getting paid the tidy sum of $ 11 Million to do it.

Sentiment: negative