As a rule, sequels to successful films should be avoided. "Gone With The Wind", "2001", "Airplane", and "Poseidon Adventure" deserved to be left alone. Those that follow them were not as well made and were clearly profiting by the original. Which leaves us in limbo about "Hannibal". It has many negatives. The sexual tension and cat and mouse games between Lecter and Clarice from "Silence of the Lambs" are not there. It is almost two and a half hours long and there are diversions which mute the story. The first scene involving the apprehension of a dangerous black woman could have been shortened or left out. Even in spite of the theater warning about graphic violence, it doesn't even live up to its own notice. After seeing your typical knifings, frontal lobotomies, wild boars ravaging, and disembowelments, the scene involving the handcuffed wrist isn't even shown. There is a technical error involving a leg x-ray that is later referred to as a wrist that should have been easily caught. So why see it? In the hands of director Ridley Scott and screenplay by David Mamet, the film generally doesn't cheapen itself with bad dialogue nor half-hearted action. Three particularly good scenes involve the pocket thief desperately chasing Lecter to get his fingerprint on a bracelet, the romp through a Washington D.C. shopping mall, and the encounter in the Florence opera house discussing Dante's Inferno. Anthony Hopkins doesn't let us down with his reprise of Lecter and Julianne Moore as Clarice is just as you would have imagined Jody Foster ten years later - their suppressed sexuality, their vulnerability as well as their toughness in keeping with character. The surprise is Giancarlo Giannini as Pazzi, who does such a good job as the hunter being hunted. But "Hannibal" is a sequel that tries to diversify and there is where the problem lies. Staying away from its strength, the mind games between Clarice and Lecter, it introduces us to two other characters that want to play with Lecter. There is Mason Verger, the rich psychiatrist, with the de-boned face and the constant wheelchair up to diabolical tricks to flesh out Lecter. There is Pazzi, the Florence detective with a dark family history of betrayal, who wants Lecter for the reward money. "Hannibal" is most interesting in the first half of the film when Lecter is playing mind games with Pazzi. Then it gets downright mundane until the final climax when Clarice and Lecter reunite with one scene in which the monstrous Lecter is carrying the unconscious Clarice like King Kong with Fay Wray or the huge robot with Anne Francis from 'Forbidden Planet". "Hannibal" deserves all the negative criticism it has received but it also deserves a viewing for the talented work put forth.
