It's a very rare sequel that's better than the original film and "Hannibal" isn't one of them. But in addition, the film actually succeeds in squandering the considerable credit that "The Silence of the Lambs" earned with the cinema-going public.

Absolutely nothing is right in this film: Lecter, ironically, seems less dangerous at liberty than he did caged, whilst Starling has lost all her youthful vulnerability and is now as tough as old boots, to the extent that you start to worry about how Lecter will cope when they finally meet.

Gone, too, is the earlier subtlety which left so much to the audience's imagination and the very graphic nature of the atrocities in the film plays like a very sick joke which you can hardly believe you've heard (or in this case, seen). In addition we have re-heated sexism, the producers obviously hoping this will help the audience re-set its moral compass to the extent that a chauvinistic member of the criminal justice system somehow deserves… more »

It's a very rare sequel that's better than the original film and "Hannibal" isn't one of them. But in addition, the film actually succeeds in squandering the considerable credit that "The Silence of the Lambs" earned with the cinema-going public.

Absolutely nothing is right in this film: Lecter, ironically, seems less dangerous at liberty than he did caged, whilst Starling has lost all her youthful vulnerability and is now as tough as old boots, to the extent that you start to worry about how Lecter will cope when they finally meet.

Gone, too, is the earlier subtlety which left so much to the audience's imagination and the very graphic nature of the atrocities in the film plays like a very sick joke which you can hardly believe you've heard (or in this case, seen). In addition we have re-heated sexism, the producers obviously hoping this will help the audience re-set its moral compass to the extent that a chauvinistic member of the criminal justice system somehow deserves to be murdered by a homicidal maniac. It doesn't work and you almost end up wishing for the days when a film like this couldn't have been made, not because of the violence and gore but because it depicts a criminal getting away with his crime.

So in other words, we don't so much have the nice Chianti of the first film but a cheap bottle of liebfraumilch of the sort that gives you a bad head in the morning. Best not to bother, therefore, and you won't spoil your memories of the truly scary original.