Because "Morbidity Of The Soul" doesn't rhyme with anything
It would perhaps be too simplistic a claim for me to say that Thomas Harris' love-it-or-hate-it followup to The Silence Of The Lambs is loved by men and hated by women, but that's certainly what I've observed. (I'll pause while exceptions to this rule ponder refuting that) Most of this gender split seems to be centered around the book's ending, which (I'm trying not to give anything away here) involved a level of humiliation for heroine Clarice Starling which might, not unreasonably, be deemed either ridiculous or offensive, particularly by women. (Men, always cheerfully willing to take amusement in the humiliation of others, generally don't seem to have a problem with it and probably wouldn't have had the same reservations if the same thing had happened to Will Graham) (That reminds me, I've got to review Manhunter one of these days..."jump cuts used to disorient the viewer" my butt)
This being a big-budget movie with name stars and a hot (again) director (let's hope G.I. Jane was just a phase), this kind of audience split is not the kind of risk the suits were willing to take (can you blame them? The female audience was probably the biggest reason that Silence was such a big hit). So, somebody decided to change that ending a little. Just a little. There's a little bit of this ending to amuse everybody, and yes gentlemen, you do get to see what you were probably hoping to see. (unless you were hoping to see the lesbian bodybuilder from the book, 'cuz she ain't here)
It's ten years after Silence. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins returns) is still at large, but nobody knows where. Turns out he's an art curator in Florence, but nobody knows this, and in the meantime Lecter has become something of a pop culture icon. Starling (now played by Julianne Moore) is a lot more hard-bitten than the Starling we last saw, as ten years in the Bureau have not been kind to her. Our re-introduction to her finds her setting a new record for the killingest female FBI agent ever. (I know "killingest" isn't a word, but dammit, it should be) Lecter and Starling find themselves entangled with each other again when a horribly mutilated old victim of Lecter's (Gary Oldman) posts a massive bounty on Lecter's live capture so that he can enact a similarly horrible revenge.
Hannibal is a movie that's easy to like but hard to be enthusiastic about. It's extremely well made, with a great cast, and of course we've got Hopkins getting to chew some scenery and some cast members, so on the surface, what's not to like? Alas, there's also the matter of that ending, which has been slightly altered into something which nobody could like. I've heard that there were three endings shot, all sure to turn up on the DVD, and this is probably the one least likely to offend or anger anybody; maybe that's a good business decision, but it's not what one should be shooting for when you're making a movie about a cannibal maniac.
The plot of this movie is damn near as weird as it is in the book. Sure, there's no lesbian bodybuilder, and Oldman's mutilated freak doesn't have that glass lens coming out of his eye, but it's still sure to leave those who haven't read the book with the enjoyable feeling of being unable to believe what it is they're seeing. Carnivorous pigs, a face getting cut off and fed to dogs, "the seat of good manners"...if it's nasty, it's here. We don't get the flashbacks into the root of Hannibal's cannibalism, which is maybe for the best. The explanation for it is brief but, for the purposes of the film, sufficient. I'm increasingly convinced that it's for the best when I look upon the jerky, rather annoying way Scott shoots other flashback scenes. And I'm pleased to report that the "sixth finger" thing, a factor in Harris's books but never mentioned in the films, is replaced nicely with an identifiable bone fracture. Actually, that's so simple that I'm a little miffed that I hadn't thought of it.
Curious thing about Lecter's new life; he doesn't do anything naughty in this movie until forces around him conspire to interfere. For that matter, what we're shown regarding this life is a rather kind (if characteristically blunt and cutting) letter to Starling in the wake of the disaster that put her in the Guinness book. In Harris's book, I remember he'd mused that he'd hardly killed anybody. I'm not sure what to make of that; Hannibal Lecter is supposed to be insane, and that's what got him caught in the first place. Are we to believe that, aside from when he's forced by necessity, he's perfectly functional now? I don't know.
What I do like about it is that the film does not reduce Lecter to a conventional movie psycho. Having Lecter escape at the end of Silence gave rise to something like Stephen King's "giant cockroach" conundrum; we wanted a followup, but it was a gimme that whatever Lecter's up to now that he's at large, we can always shrug and think "Well, it could've been worse." Hannibal sidesteps that issue somewhat by removing the necessity for the cockroach at all; Lecter's new life is one of academia, not of bloodshed. Previously, Hannibal Lecter was like a focal point of madness and evil, like that scary tree on Dagobah. Hannibal presents him as not as a slasher of any sort but of a vast reservoir of potential, waiting to be released by the right motivations.
Julianne Moore does a creditable job following up Foster as Starling, and for that matter, many might find her a little more tolerable since there's less of a reliance on gasping and staccato speech patterns. Starling then and Starling now, however, seem so different that comparisons seem futile. I'm just glad they didn't go with Gillian Anderson; not only am I not in the least bit convinced that she's capable of acting beyond the extremely narrow range of expression that her role as Dana Scully calls for, but to play another FBI agent as her first role of any significance beyond The X-Files would be going beyond mere typecasting, into actually putting Dana Scully in this movie.
The rest of the cast is fine, Oldman letting his disgusting appearance do most of his acting for him, and Ray Liotta as a repellent politician does his standard repellent-Liotta schtick, which he happens to do better than just about anybody. Oldman deserves credit for delivering - with as straight a face as his makeup will allow - possibly the most hilarious understatement I've ever heard when he explains exactly why he cut off his own face and fed it to dogs. However, I thought it a little gratuitous that this character had to be a child molester; sure, he's disgusting to look at, but this makes it too easy to have no sympathy for him (and in turn, have more sympathy for the target of his vengeance), when really, he's got a pretty legitimate beef against Lecter.
This is by no means a great movie, but there's easily enough to like about it that it should be seen by any fan of Silence with a strong enough stomach to handle what they're going to see here. The ending, however, just doesn't feel right. There is a lot of respect, and even maybe genuine affection, between Starling and Lecter, but what ultimately comes to pass simply doesn't ring true; Lecter is a man who once cut off another man's face and wore it over his own to escape the authorities. Do we really buy that he would do what he does in the end? I don't know about you, but I don't. A lot of people thought the ending of the book was quite a reach; what we see Lecter do here is a lot easier to imagine, since it's nowhere near as complex, but it's a lot harder to believe. And yet, it's not quite as hard to believe as the movie's final scene on an airplane, which is sure to make you wonder about the observational skills of airline security.
If nothing else, Hannibal makes me want to read the book again, and that's a fairly worthwhile result, I should think. If Harris ever gets around to writing a fourth Lecter book, look for the lightning-fast adaptation into film to be a lot less faithful than this one was. Remember the cockroach thing...no matter what we get, it's easy to imagine something worse.
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