In the first post, I had listed Ridley Scott's Hannibal (2001) as one of my favorite underrated sequels. I really like this particular film a lot, because it has a more epic feel to it and widens the characters' universe considerably. It's also extremely baroque and perverse, although not without its own (admittedly warped) moral compass!
True, Julianne Moore isn't Jodie Foster, but her performance as Clarice Starling is still terrific in its own right. Gary Oldman is excellent as the warped, disfigured Mason Verger - particularly when he first comes face to face with the captive Dr. Lecter and gives a biology lesson on his pet boars, counting exactly how many of each kind of teeth they have! Ray Liotta is perfection as the smarmy, corrupt Paul Krendler, and he lends a welcome dose of goofy humor to counteract the gruesomeness of the infamous final dinner scene. And then of course there's Anthony Hopkins in the title role! Granted, there's sometimes a little too much ham in his performance, and I could have done without at least one "okey-dokey!" But these are minor complaints - petty trifles, really.
I think it's really quite telling that after the so-so reception of this long-awaited sequel to the Academy Award-nominated The Silence Of The Lambs (1991), the producers almost immediately decided to do something that was stylistically more in line with Silence, opting to do a prequel in adapting Harris' first Lecter novel Red Dragon. Granted, Red Dragon (2002) isn't bad at all (I mean, how could it be with Edward Norton in the lead?), but I thought it was done perfectly alright the first time around by Michael Mann with Manhunter (1986), thank you very much.
And as far as Hannibal Rising (2007) is concerned...well, suffice to say I really can't remember all that much about it, really! (And that's never a good sign...)
