Yesterday, I watched the previous movie of this series, Silence of the Lambs. I wonder why they took 10 years to do a sequel after the first one being so successful. I’ve read some good reviews on the sequel so I decided to watch it too. Fortunately, I had a little sanity still left to be able to watch this. It’s interesting to find out where Hannibal Lecter has been off to after the final scenes of the first movie. It’s nice to be able to find out how Clarice Starling has been all these years. Let’s see what the better movie is.
Hannibal is 2001 film created by Ridley Scott. Yes the Aliens and Gladiator guy! It’s a direct sequel to the 1991 critically-acclaimed movie Silence of the Lambs. The story picks up 10 years after the events of the first movie. It now follows Clarice Starling and her search for the notorious cannibalistic serial-killer Hannibal Lecter after his escape in the first movie. Anthony Hopkins is back portraying his Academy Award winning role Hannibal Lecter. Sadly, Jodie Foster wanted nothing to do with the sequel and did not return. Julianne Moore stepped up as the new Clarice Starling. Hey, she’s pretty hot too. I’m not complaining.
At the start of the movie, Clarice gets caught up in a drug raid that goes wrong, placing her in probation within the FBI. This puts her search for Lecter in jeopardy. Luckily for her, a wealthy surviving victim of Lecter, Mason, uses his power to reassign her to the case. Mason plans to brutally torture him by feeding him to specially-trained rabid boars. Based from his disfigured appearance, I guess I understand why he wants Lecter to suffer far worse than he did. We can see that Clarice has this unhealthy obsession for catching Lecter. I guess that’s what being in contact with a psychopath does to somebody.
Later in the movie, we find Lecter disguising as another man in Italy. He still sends this creepy good guy vibe and intellect. He sends Clarice little clues to aid in her search. Apparently, he still has this creepy attraction to her from the first movie. Mason also placed a 3M dollar reward for handing Lecter over to him than to the FBI. This captures the attention of an Italian inspector who personally knows the disguise of Hannibal Lecter. Deciding to take matters in his own hands, he devises a plan to capture Lecter. Despite repeated warnings from Clarice, he still goes for it on his own. He’s about to learn a valuable lesson in “it takes a special man to outsmart a psycho serial-killer like Hannibal Lecter”. His death came in the form of hanging and disembodiment. It was disgusting how his guts were spilling all over the floor. Seeing his cover blown, he moves back to the United States.
Back in the States, she begins contacting Clarice, showing their strange relationship once again. He even makes her go to a mall seeing her from afar, just because he’s creepy like that. We also got to see a weird product placement during their interaction. Good job Gucci! It’s important to note though, that since he’s back in the States, Mason’s men got to him easier. He let his guard down by wanting to see Clarice and gets taken hostage in Mason’s wild pig pen. I didn’t expect that he’d jeopardized himself like that just to see her. In a strange twist, Clarice comes to his rescue right before he got fed to the wild boars. Pretty weird huh? Lecter really got to her. Apparently during her research on him, she figures out a strange pattern that he only tortures evil people. I’m not so sure about that. He repays the favor by healing her gunshot wounds in her home. Wow, again I never expected such a heroic act to come from him. What a weird relationship these two have.
Hannibal managed to abduct the man responsible for Clarice’s bad reputation and held him hostage in her home, while she was recovering from the wounds. He injects both of them morphine for good measure. In a sick display of mindf***ery, Lecter prepares a fancy dinner for them both. On the main course, is the guy’s brain! He cuts the guy’s head up in front of Clarice, cuts a piece of the guy’s brain and fed it to him. This all happened before dinner so my appetite was ruined once again! When Lecter stepped aside from the table, Clarice tried to stab him. Her attempts were quickly seized as he traps her next to the refrigerator. As retaliation, she cuffs himself to him. In a sick twist of story, Hannibal Lecter actually plants a kiss on her. This was perhaps the most disgusting part of the movie for me. It made me wanna puke so much, I thought I’d actually puke. Yes it was worse and more disgusting than the brain thing and all the other gory s*** that happens in this movie. When the police were about to arrive, he cuts his own hand off to escape. And so he’s gone once again.
Silence of the Lambs was already a disgusting movie for me. Honestly, I thought this movie would fail to live up, but it turns out Hannibal was even more disgusting. I don’t wanna tarnish the legacy of the first movie because I know it received all the awards, but I honestly thought the second movie was done better. At least for the second hour though, the first hour built up kind of slowly. But I guess this movie would be nothing without the first one. I think, however, that Jodie Foster played a better Clarice Starling than Julianne Moore. The portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in this movie was even more confusing, since he goes great lengths just for Clarice. The movie was filled with more twists, action, and gore. I understand why it got good reviews, it served as a great sequel.
PS: I doubt my sanity can handle watching the third movie after this. I’m looking to watch something fun tomorrow to balance my mind.
One Movie A Day 