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The long awaited sequel to Silence of the Lambs, this film was gonna be big anyway right?! Well I’ve never actually got round to watching Silence of the Lambs. I did watch a bit of it on TV one night, but I think I had coursework to be doing at the time, so didn’t quite catch it all, I was I had now judging by Hannibal! Another reason I haven’t seen Silence of the Lambs is the fact that I can’t seem to rent it anywhere, not in the shops I rent my videos from anyway. Anyway, this is about Hannibal, Not Silence of the Lambs!
Hannibal is like I have already said, the follow up to Silence of the Lambs. I’ll give them credit, they could of called it Silence of the Lambs 2, but they didn’t! I think people have taken Silence of the Lambs to be the better film of the two, so I was a bit sceptical about watching this one before watching Silence of the Lambs, that’s why it’s taken me so long to getting round to watch it, but today I gave in and sat down with me packet of Square (those crisps! squares on it’s own sounded strange!) and me bottle of coke, which is usual when I plan to sit anywhere for a while!
The film itself is actually very good, however it lacked in parts I found. Maybe this was all building up to the great bits, but in my opinion, maybe there was just a bit too much of a build up. I’m gonna have to rewind a bit here and go back to the start of the film. The opening credits are plain weird, but very good! I don’t think I have ever seen a film open with such weird filmography, however, it got me intrigued as to what the film was going to be like, so I suppose it did it’s job.
We are thrown into the film with 3 men talking. One of the men’s face is all disfigured and has a keen interest in Hannibal as he is willing to pay $250, 000 dollars for the green mask Hannibal wore in Silence of the Lambs. It soon turns out that the bloke with the disfigured face is Mason Verger (Gary Oldman), one of Lecter’s old victims. He was led to feeding the skin of his face to a dog and now wants his revenge, but he keeps this all very quiet and just lets people know he has an interest in Hannibal Lecter being captured.
The opening scenes are pretty important to the rest of the movie. We are thrown into a drugs raid which is carried out in what I can best describe as a small market town in some foreign country. FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) knows the subject she wants to arrest well and knows how dangerous the suspect is. However, theres another team supposedly working alongside Clarice’s team who kind of messes things up and Clarice ends up having to shoot the women who she wants as she is getting shot herself. One problem is, the women Clarice is shooting at is holding a baby. Now, for those of you who don’t know, FBI agent Clarice was played by Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs.
The drugs raid ends up with multiple killed and Clarice getting told off for what she’s has done as it is all over the papers etc. We are then introduced to Lecter (Sir Anthony Hopkins) himself. He is now in Italy, a lecturer in Arts. He is looking to fulfil the position of a lecturer who committed suicide. An FBI agent from Italy has been assigned to the case of the man who commited suicide, so has close contact with Lecter, although he doesn’t yet know who he is.
While all this is going on, Lecter has seen the papers and seen his old friend Clarice and the story. He decides to write to Clarice, giving Clarice a clue as to where he is in the world. The thing is, Lecter is bored of being in a ’hibernation’ state, hiding from everyone, he wants a battle once again. There is a fingerprint left on the letter and some clues in the scent of the perfume Lecter was wearing when he wrote the letter which gives big clues to where he is. Clarice ring’s the office that Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) (the FBI agent who is studying the case of the suicide) works in and asks for a tape of a perfume store to be copied and sent to the FBI in America. Rinaldo becomes a bit wary of what’s going on and looks at the tape himself, only to see Lecter in it and begins to wonder what is going on.
Rinaldo study’s Lecter for a few days and notices that everything Lecter touches, he wipes clean afterwards to remove any fingerprints. He then looks up the FBI most wanted page and sees Lecter there with a rewards for $3, 000, 000. He does his best to get his hands on that money, but Lecter can outwit most people and soon realizes what’s going on. Let’s just say from here, Rinaldo end’s up hung with his bowels on the floor beneath him¦.loveeeeeellllyyy!
From here were playing cat and mouse really, with some pretty good scenes to be seen. (scenes to be seen? Does that sound right!?) It all comes together pretty nicely and there are some great twists in the story. However, I just don’t want to ruin it for you!
So, the gore factor. Well, I have to say, there isn’t really that many scenes with gore in. It’s mostly saved to the end scenes, but what gore there is, it’s pretty intense. For example. You see a guy sitting there with his brain exposed and Lecter taking parts out of his brain, cooking them and then feeding them to the same bloke. Pretty disgusting yes, but it’s all there for a reason and it does make great viewing.
The plot comes together very well. I thought this might be one of those films, especially being the second instalment that relies all on either action, gore or frightening scenes to keep the film alive. However, Hannibal doesn’t rely on any of these although it doe’s have an element of them in the film. It can stand up on it’s on based on just the plot itself and would have been a good movie even without the extra action bits put in. It really does unravel into something that makes you think ’wow’ and doesn’t let you down, even if you think you know where the film is going.
One thing that will stand out to you, and you will notice is the soundtrack. Right from the opening credits the soundtrack and music itself is used to it’s full potential. A lot of opera is used in the film as it is basically set in Italy. Now, I’m not a fan of opera, but it didn’t put me off, it actually helped me watch the film. The music is very calming, which is just what you need to get your suspense up in this sort of film. It was used extremely well and the music, in my opinion could not have been done better. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not all opera, there are some more recent types of music used in the film aswell. They have struck a great balance. The thing that stood out most to me was the fact that music was playing nearly all the way through the film. Even when dialogue is going on, theres background music, be it calming music or suspenseful music, it always seems to be used. This has a great effect in the film. I can’t seem to quite get my hand on what it is that makes the music so good, so you’ll have to watch it yourself to find out! I’ll list a couple of the songs used, but I doubt many of us will know them, so I’ll keep it small! Actually, I can’t as the music on the soundtrack listed in scenes, so it won’t make much sense to you. However, a couple of the song’s are listed as featuring Sir Anthony Hopkins, so whether he had something to do with the music I don’t know, if you know, leave a comment and let me know will ya!?
Go rent it, theres mixed reviews on this one, but if you like the other films that I have given opinions on, then you should also like this one.