Producing a sequel to "The Silence Of the Lambs" was never going to be an easy task. But then again, delivering an outing as bland as this one is quite a remarkable achievement in itself. Veneered with some pictorial elegance, as was expected from director Scott, it tries in vain to compensate for a narrative as limp and ponderous as Mason Verger, Lecter's wheelchair-bound nemesis. In its discomfiture to adopt a right footing, the film is forced to duly provide a few gory moments shamelessly reducing the brilliant and dangerous psychiatrist we adored into a gastronomer boogeyman as scary as toasted bread. Ultimately, trapped by its inept plot line and having nowhere to go, the film concludes with an ending which must rank amongst the gravest mistakes in the history of cinema. Pity.
