8. Hannibal
Hannibal is derided for two reasons. Reason one, its not
Silence of the Lambs. Reason two, Hannibal Lecter seems to have changed a lot since we last met him. Hes stopped being a terrifying force of nature, and has instead become just really, really creepy. When we combine the perceived lack of sharpness in Lecters character with a tonal shift from the tense-ness of
Silence, its easy to view
Hannibal as a listless, bumbling film. Yet Id argue the tonal shift was necessary:
Silence had already taken that horse as far as it could run, achieving the fabled lock-out at the Oscars (Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture). To attempt to ape this again would inevitably mean a pale imitation, so a new direction was taken, featuring a more languid, artsy pace and a more avuncular Lecter. One could argue that this much slower burn gave the obligatory ultraviolent scenes more power Theres a lot to be said about a film which is just as at home explaining the intricacies of fine art as it is showing a brutal disembowelling. It also allows for a brilliant character study. While
Silence mainly portrayed Lecter as a psychopathic murderer, the florid approach of
Hannibal utterly negates this intensity to the point that the audience begins to properly warm to him as an anti-hero. Hes not a coiled spring any more, hes like that strange but likeable uncle, which makes us all the more horrified when he does commit an atrocity. For example, by the end of the film wed spent the run-time effectively cheering Lecter on against the heinously awful Mason Verger (an excellent Gary Oldman). But then he goes and takes off the top of Ray Liottas head, cooks his brain and feeds it back to him. Watching Lecter do this is made even more powerful due to the tone of the movie
Silences terse approach leaves you in no doubt that he would commit these heinous acts if given the chance, but the follow-up lulled you into a false sense of security, making the more grotesque elements of Harris source material seem more shocking as a result. Such an approach was also a triumph of style for Ridley Scott while
Silence only let us view Lecter as an animal in a cage,
Hannibal brought the audience into his worldview, replete with its sense of gothic hedonism. Everything is given the lavish treatment, from the incredibly beautiful opera scene to the sickeningly macabre demise of Ray Liotta. Even the monster that is Mason Verger is housed in sufficiently luxurious surroundings. This aesthetic is well-suited to the underlying horror of proceedings, and makes Lecter into an even more compelling character. Rather than being the almost one-dimensional killer of
Silence (although what a dimension it was), hes rounded out into something puzzling; hes an aesthete, a personable chap who just so happens to like eating people, albeit rude ones. Hes also strangely in love with Clarice Starling, to the point where he chops his own hand off rather than hers to escape. We see an unnervingly human side to the cannibal, and its impressive that the film manages to adequately convey both sides of the Lecter coin without descending into pastiche.