We're going to be doing four screenings for this movie the second week of September, and two of them will be 700 seaters! I can't wait!

I am so jealous. Let me know if it's better than Hannibal OK? I don't expect it to be better than Silence of the Lambs, I'm too realistic. But I doubt it would be as disapointing as Hannibal.

I loved Hannibal (novel) until the end. It seems that Harris just...gave up.

Anyways, my theater will probably get it too; since we had Hannibal.

Actually I think Harris was trying to write a novel that Hollywood wouldn't want to turn into a moive cause I guess he wasn't pleased with Silence of the Lambs Little does he know how low studios like to stoop.

Well, Hannibal disappointed me because it ended where it started, with Lecter free, and without truly advancing the story beyond the end of Silence of the Lambs, and although it didn't occur in the movie, the idea in the book that Clarice and Lecter got it on is an offensive bit of plotting. I also didn't understand why it appeared Lecter severed Clarice's arm at the end of the movie, and then in the next scene it turns out he didn't. Hannibal was a poor addendum tacked onto The Silence of the Lambs, but Red Dragon wasn't written with that mindset, so I think it comes across as more sincere and genuine.

Since the story doesn't even focus on Lecter, and since the first movie based on it, Manhunter, is so critically praised, the only way Red Dragon cannot equal it, given the all-star cast, is if Brett Ratner, who's never really distinguished himself as a A-List director, and whose only films I've heard of are the Rush Hour films (which were not that director-driven) and Family Man (which was a flop), does a really bad job of it.

Both trailers are up on the official site at http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/red_dragon/, but not for download. There are also production photos. I’m curious to see how the Ted Tally gets around the issue of Lecter getting his hands on a phone from his cell, which is crucial to the plot. In the movie Manhunter, Lecter was in a conventional-looking cell, rather than the elaborate dungeon set used in Silence, and it was plausible the way it was set up. I also think that the exchange between Brian Cox’s Lecter and William Peterson’s Will Graham in Manhunter was nicer, and more subtle in its delivery than the way Hopkins and Edward Norton deliver it in Red Dragon, but that’s just me.

Luigi: Regarding the whole chopping of arms in Hannibal, I thought it was obvious. Lecter is in love with Clarice, so he chopped off his own hand. Duh, big red truck. That was one of the few things about the movie I liked.

I also didn't understand why it appeared Lecter severed Clarice's arm at the end of the movie, and then in the next scene it turns out he didn't. - Luigi

Misdirection is an oft-used ploy in movies. Spielberg uses it a lot (he makes us think the lights out Richard Dreyfuss's back window are just headlights, makes us think the truck behind the trees that opens Jurassic park is a dinosaur, makes us think Marion was on the truck that exploded in Raiders). Monster movies use it a lot, too (Ridley Scott even used it in Alien. Even Silence of the Lambs used it, making us think the Feds were ringing Buffalo Bill's doorbell when it was really Clarice.

and Family Man (which was a flop)

I wouldn't go that far. It cost $60 million and made $75 in US theaters. 75 mil isn't bad for a sappy drama, although 60 mill is way too much to pay to make one.

In other words, it profited $15 million. And it was indeed a creative flop, in my opinion of the movie, and in the opinion of critics.

Wait, are we talking about the crumby It's A Wonderful Life rip-off with Nic Cage? I thought the movie was a comercial failure. It realy made 75 mil?

I didn't say it was a money making hit. I simply said it was not a flop. A movie that breaks even with lottle profit is not a hit but flop is usualy reserved for those flicks that loose money (the under-rated Cuththroat Island, The Postman).

And it was indeed a creative flop, in my opinion of the movie, and in the opinion of critics.

According to Rotton Tomatos.com which has reviews from many of the nation's top critics it got a split vote 51% liked it 49% did not.

BTW I'm not defending the flick, I'm not really a fan of it either. I'm just a fan of accuracy.

In brief: Loved it. It lived up to and surpassed my expectations.

Red Dragon, for those of you who don’t know, was the first novel by Thomas Harris to feature Hannibal Lecter. It was made into a 1986 movie called Manhunter directed by Michael Mann (TV’s Miami Vice, Heat, The Insider), with William Peterson (TV’s CSI) as Will Graham, Brian Cox (General Stryker from the upcoming X-Men 2) as Hannibal Lecter, Dennis Farina (Miami Vice, In-Laws) as Jack Crawford, and Joan Allen (Nixon, Face-Off, The Contender) as Reba McClane. While Manhunter looks a bit 80’s-dated today (some of the hairstyles and the Miami Vice-style synthesizer music stands out), it was well-received by both critics and viewers. Still, Manhunter was not the blockbuster that Silence of the Lambs became four years later, and indeed, when a TV network broadcast it in the wake of the success of Silence of the Lambs with the altered title Red Dragon: The Pursuit of Hannibal Lecter, one TV critic blasted the manipulative title, since Lecter barely appears in the film.

So to prove itself, this new Red Dragon movie will find itself between a rock and a hard place: For fans of Manhunter it will have to succeed as a remake, and for those not aware of Manhunter who might assume that the corporate suits decided to go in the opposite direction in the Chronology after the disappointing Hannibal, it will have to succeed as a prequel. (It may even be seen as jumping on a 2001/2002 prequel bandwagon, given Enterprise, Smallville and Star Wars EPISODE II.)

Thankfully, Red Dragon succeeds beautifully as both.

Why does it succeed as a remake?

For one thing, there’s the aforementioned dated look and feel of Manhunter. I also feel that some of the music and dialogue delivery from that film (specifically when Graham talks to himself after climbing a tree) was a bit campy and corny. Red Dragon has a less exclusive style, and manages to put a lot of story information into two hours that draws you into the story a bit deeper than Manhunter did. Whereas both the novel and Manhunter open with retired FBI profiler Will Graham some time after recovering from a near-fatal injury, relaxing with his family when Jack Crawford calls him back to work on the search for a killer called the Tooth Fairy, Red Dragon the movie opens up several years earlier. (I won’t reveal why this is good.) The movie succeeds surprisingly well in giving Lecter more screen time than in Manhunter (perhaps because it was thought wise not to attract viewers who might feel cheated otherwise), but incredibly, WITHOUT padding his part or taking away from Graham’s search for the Tooth Fairy, something I might not have thought possible. The Tooth Fairy himself gets a more in-depth look as well, and some surprising differences between Reba McClane’s relationship to him in this movie and in Manhunter serve to punctuate the way in which he is provoked over the edge even more. The movie is more detailed, and its themes and psychological games more explored, but without exceeding a two hour running time. My hats off to the creators.
---Less importantly, it succeeds as a prequel because it acknowledges its production relationship to The Silence of the Lambs, as well as its place in the chronology. Lecter has a bit more privileges. (I can’t imagine, for example, him having phone privileges in Silence.) We see familiar faces and places. Whereas Lecter’s cell in Manhunter was a plain, clinical-looking white cage with bars, and Benjamin Hendrickson’s Dr. Chilton a minor player, and less petty and obstructive, Red Dragon duplicates the dungeon of The Silence of the Lambs, and Anthony Heald’s smarmy, petty torturer. (Heald, along with Frankie Faison, are the only two actors to reprise their roles from The Silence of the Lambs.) What’s also interesting about Dr. Chilton is that while he’s still a pain in the ass, we see how that personality manifests itself differently around Graham than it did around Clarice Starling. With Starling, his smarminess is filtered through a lens of sexism and resentment towards a young woman having authority and privilege over him. Around Graham, whom he admires, he’s the obsequious lapdog who’s all proud that he’s been made hall monitor, hungry for attention and glory. And the closing scene of the movie is perfect.
---In noting both the cast and the fact that the screenwriter was the same one as Silence, I figured the only way to mess this one up would be if director Brett Ratner turned out to be incompetent. Since the only movies of his I’ve seen were the Rush Hour movies (which are not that noteworthy so much for the direction) and Family Man (which I thought was awful), I was hopeful but skeptical. Seeing it, however, has won me over, as Ratner does a good job. I must state upfront, however, that I don’t usually get scared at "scary" movies (I liked The Sixth Sense, for example, for the drama, story and character, not because I was actually scared—though Signs was an exception), but I enjoy them if the story and characters are well-developed. In this vein, I enjoyed Red Dragon, and joined the applause at the end of the screening, though even I must admit to flinching once or twice when Ratner pulled one of his "flash" tricks on us.
---I have a feeling that because of its similarity to Silence of the Lambs, people many unfairly question whether Red Dragon surpasses it, forgetting that it was this story that came first, but I think it’ll win over more people than Hannibal did, and who know, maybe even redeem the series in the eyes of some.
---Now if only they can get Thomas Harris to write a fourth and final novel in which Graham and Clarice team up to finally capture or kill Lecter once and for all……hell, if it’s good enough, you could stick it after Silence and make believe Hannibal never even happened…

CAST NOTE: Be on the lookout for Ken Leung as Lloyd Bowman, a specialist who first appears to examine a special note written on toilet paper. He played the blonde kidnapper in Rush Hour (which Brett Ratner also directed), and Don, the karaeoke salesman in Keeping the Faith (which Edward Norton directed and starred in).

NITS and NOTES:
No nits really stood out to me, but one thing I noticed was this: After Lecter’s cell, there are stone steps that bend around the corner. Was that stairway in Silence? Maybe I just don’t remember it, but then again, it’s possible the place was rebuilt.

For more production information on the film, go to the Interview Movie Database at imdb.com. The page for this movie is at http://us.imdb.com/Title?0289765. To view the production stills and the two trailers for the film, go to the official site at http://www.reddragonmovie.com/.

Red Dragon was incredible. Has to be one of the Best Films I've seen this year. It had me on the edge of my seat and the ending.. no words. Everyone in the theatre was screaming and gasping and laughing and clapping, it was great. Of course this is just my opinion but the movie is head and shoulders above Hannibal as far as I'm concerned. It has my stamp of approval.

Thanks Luigi.. You're the MoFo man =oP

Any time, dude.

I read that Anthony Hopkins received $20 million for three weeks work on Red Dragon. Mr. Hopkins sure has come a long way since the mid-'80's, when he was doing TV tripe like Hollywood Wives. (Of course, to be fair, Hopkins did many high-quality TV projects too, like QB VII, The Bunker, and The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case)

His Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs is noteworthy for a similar reason: he appears in the movie for a total of only 30 minutes, the shortest amount of screen time for a Best Actor Oscar winner.

I guess he [Thomas Harris] wasn't pleased with Silence of the Lambs Little does he know how low studios like to stoop.

I read that Thomas Harris never saw Silence because he didn't want the movie to influnece his writing style. That's probably why he wrote a basicaly un-filmable book, he didn't want to be accused doing what John Grisham & Michael Chrichton always get accused of, writing a book for the sole purpose of inspiring a movie plot. I think his big mistake with Hannibal was misunderstanding the appeal of Hanibal. As a bad guy he's a great guy to love to hate, Hanibal made him practicaly the hero of the story where you introduce unlikable characters that we are supposed to cheer when he kills them.

The reason that I like this one better than Manhunter is because Michael Mann can make cool stylish movies he can't really do creepy and scary all that well. Manhunter has stylish art deco production design while the others have creepy gothic production design. For the love of God he used the High Museam of Art here in Atlanta as Lecters prison/hospital. The High Museam is a cool looking building but in no way creepy espicaly compaired to the gothic castle look of the hospical of this and silence.

The big nit in the movie is Lecter's age. I've heard he got a "digital facelift" for this movie to make him look more like he did in Silence but that opening scene (set in 1980 that's over a decade before Silence) he clearly is older than he would have been in that year. Note: he does look about the right age in the newspaper photos durring the opening credits, because it's easier to seemlessly touch up a still photo than a motion picture.


BTW I heard that producer Dino DeLaurentis is considering doing a sequel to Hanibal that would not be based on a Harris novel (he takes about 7 years between books) but writen as an origional story (as Jurassic Park III or the Rambo sequels did) that would bring back Graham to hunt down Lecter.

I know that the book Red Dragon is set well before Silence of the Lambs, and I'm pretty sure the film is meant to be as well. But if the "young lady from the FBI" mentioned at the end is in fact who we all THINK she is, doesn't that put the main events in this film about a week or two before Silence?And thus the ending leads directly into Silence. I wonder if maybe they put that ending in to make Lecters age work? Because he certainly doesn't look any younger this time around......
Top film though. Better then I was expecting, and so much better than Hannibal. Lecter seems so much more dangerous in a cell then he does while roaming free, doesn't he?

I have nothing but utmost praise for the movie.

Excellent directing, SUPERB casting...


Ed Norton. Twenty-nine, and an Oscar nominee; a real class act to boot. Captured Graham's character *perfectly.* (Afterthought: Not to mention fine as all hell, even though I don't like blondes.)

Ralph Fiennes. When I think of Fiennes, it brings up images of the legendary actors--Matthau, Gable, etc. Unbelievable in the way he captured an insane, obsessed man, with a tortured soul.

Anthony Hopkins. Creepy and perfect. Really, what else need be said?

Harvey Keitel Really, it's Keitel. What do you think?

Mary-Louise Parker West Wing recurring character; little screen time, but plays role well.

Emily Watson Very talented woman; portrayed her character wonderfully. I won't spoil it, so I'll stop here.

I know that the book Red Dragon is set well before Silence of the Lambs, and I'm pretty sure the film is meant to be as well. But if the "young lady from the FBI" mentioned at the end is in fact who we all THINK she is, doesn't that put the main events in this film about a week or two before Silence?

That bit was while Hannibal was writing a letter to Graham that said "I hear you are fully recovered from your injuries" It must have taken some time to be fully recovered (with no sign of stiches or scabs) from laying half dead on the floor covered in your own blood. And Hannibal had to hear about it and I don't think word travals fast to a guy in such confinement.

What do you mean, Brian? We saw the scar on Graham's side early in the movie after the "Several Years Later" title card when Graham is in his house talking to Molly and takes off his shirt.

Hannah: Harvey Keitel Really, it's Keitel. What do you think?
Luigi Novi: I think I'm glad we didn't have to see his peni$ again in a film.

Brian's talking about at the end of the film... Graham has seemingly recovered from the gunshot wounds.

I noticed during the end credits that they list a clip from Silence of the Lambs... does anyone know where this is in the film? Is it one of the establishing shots of Lecter's hospital?

Oh! And how foolish can Graham be? He moves back to his home in Marathon Key after the Tooth Fairy "dies." Um... Lecter knows where he lives. Is there any way they can be sure he hadn't passed the information onto someone else? And how much therapy is Graham's boy going to need?

Brian, I had not considered that. But still, it does seem kinda like a stretch of time....Nice touch though, no doubt about it.
Also, did they actually explain how Lecter's code worked to give Dolarhyde Graham's address?

It referred to a cookbook that both used as reference.

Brian Fitzgerald: I read that Thomas Harris never saw Silence because he didn't want the movie to influnece his writing style.
Luigi Novi: Well, he did attend the screening for Hannibal at the Loews Lincoln Square a few years ago. He was there with Stephen King, and sat in the balcony.

Hopkins' Oscar for "The Silence of the Lambs" is noteworthy for a similar reason: he appears in the movie for a total of only 30 minutes, the shortest amount of screen time for a Best Actor Oscar winner.
Actually, according to both IMDB and American Movie Classics, Hopkins was on screen in Silence a grand total of 16 minutes. When I watched Silence so many years ago, I didn't time Hopkins' perf with a stopwatch.