| Red Dragon | | Cast : | Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes | | Director : | Brett Ratner | | Studio : | Universal Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | October 04, 2002 | | DVD Released Date : | June 01, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 04, 2005 | | Summary | ****4 stars**** | Content
 | Better then the previous prequel 'Manhuter'. ToothFairy is a lot more sinister in this version (thanks to the extraordinary Ralph Fiennes, can't wait to see him as Voldmort). Anthony Hopkins could play Hannibal Lector in his sleep. Strong performance by both Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Emily Watson. Thought Edward Norton gave a very lack luster performance, nothing like his in American History X or Primal Fear, so he was the weak link. Very erie feel to the movie. Has one or two rough spots but all in all I would diffently recommend this movie. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 21, 2005 | | Summary | "if I told you, you wouldn't eat it"( Hannibal Lecter) | Content
| Red Dragon is my second favorite film from the Hannibal Lecter trilogy, the first being the silence of the lambs. This movie once again portrays Thomas Harris's novel which I just started reading. This is the first of the trilogy even though it was released last. This is when Hannibal Lecter is captured for the first time by William Graham played by Edward Norton. Anthony Hopkins is at his best while Harvey Keitel plays the best Jack Crawford yet. But of course, once in prison, Will Graham must interview Lecter, trying to find information on a new killer.
Graham was on the verge of retiring when he decided to come back to the force. What's good about this movie is that it isn't disturbing like the other two, so a larger range of people could problably watch it.
What distinguishes this one from the others is that you see the killer's battle against himself. Ralph Fiennes plays the killer with lots of force, and he tries to conquor himself and his anger. He basically does everything a painting tells him to do, but once he starts seeing a blind lady for whom he falls for, he tries to stop doing what he does.
The movie has MANY amazing scenes and sequences and the conclusion makes your heart beat as much as the silence of the lambs did. It's not as good as the remarquable silence of the lambs, but saying that it's almost as good as it, that's pretty remarquable itself. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 02, 2005 | | Summary | i didn't have a problem with it | Content
| i was told by various critics, during a dinner party which i was hosting - i served sweetbread garnished in all the assorted accuments - that red dragon was an inferior film made by an inferior director and a few other hollywood almost-somebodies. these somebodies took on the duties of putting this piece together because the everybodies didn't want in and it was still too large a production for the nobodies. good enough for me, a man who giggled like mad at "bachelor party," a film starring nobody tom hanks before he became somebody.
long before we knew hannibal lector to be hannibal lector, he knew himself as sort of an aristocrat. this rare peek into his life is priceless and begins the movie, the prequel to "silence of the lambs." "red dragon" tells the tale of a mysteriously disturbed man who does horrible things to people because he wants it to be seen. he needs it to be seen. but the people watching are not alive, having been offed by our crazed offender. this being the case, you can imagine how strange a case file or serial killer profile this had to be for the fbi.
without giving away much, i loved ed norton, as i usually do, even moreso than before i knew him as an actor and not just some guy that made me say "WILL YOU CUT IT OUT!?!" in ralph kramden fashion whenever i heard his name mentioned. just a little thing i do.
norton is so competent and believable even when sometimes the script is not. truthfully, it's not a bad script, but there are some uneven qualities to it that i just overlooked for the heck of it.
hopkins is lector and nobody can take that away from him. he won an oscar when he played the character the first time, so i could care less that he looks older in the prequel. he still acts younger and i bought it. he was less-hardened by prison...more at home with his refinements. yeah, i bought it.
the others are brought back too. dr. childers looks noticably older from his first "silence" appearance and barney the orderly, whom i live nearby, is left in long shots so as not to ask for too much suspension of disbelief.
the story is golden, a weird chase after a serial killer by the man who caught hannibal lector, paid for it, and retired early, ed norton. said killer is played okay by ralph fiennes who i want to call "ralf fee-in-ness." he is one problematic character and while i knew he was a killer, i wanted everything to be okay with him and his cute blind girlfriend. sue me.
not as bad as i expected, the dvd version gives us a nice, written casefile of hannibal lector, including insight into his childhood.
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| Rating | | | Date | May 03, 2005 | | Summary | ManHunter was Better! | Content
| Although Red Dragon is closer to the storyline of the book, it did not have the haunting eerieness of Manhunter. The only thing Red Dragon had going for it was Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector. Edward Norton played Will Graham in Red Dragon and I have to say he was not very convincing. It was orginally played by William Petersen of the series CSI and he was much more believeable and tangent as the FBI investigator. Edward Norton seemed way out of his element. I'm not saying that Red Dragon is a bad movie.....it's just not as good or as creepy as Manhunter. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 04, 2005 | | Summary | All Muffin Top, No Muffin. | Content
| I really wanted to like this movie. In my opinion Brett Ratner and Ted Tally did a second rate job of bringing the story from print to screen. Everything in this movie is muffin top, with no actual muffin. The duo did a wonderful job of including practically every scene from book to film, but along the way lost everything that made these scenes make sense. Nothing is explained, no motivations are explored, and characters are so thin that they are barely recognizable beyond the basic Killer, FBI agent, scummy reporter icons. This is a common danger of transferring a book to screen (too much info, not enough time to convey it); there is an art to it, and this time Ratner and Tally are merely drawing stick figures. To compound the problem, both have chosen to beef up Hannibal Lector's on screen time, which not only does not mirror the book, it takes away from the suspense of the actual plot. The best example I can give is that Ratner and Tally have chosen to include lengthy scenes including Reba, a blind woman, touching a tiger as it's under anesthesia, going so far as to include her cupping the tiger's genitals, yet they give no reason for why the characters are in this situation in the first place. In the movie it comes off as merely aesthetic and pointless to the plot (in the book it is very important to the plot). Most everything in the movie comes off this way. Another example is the motivation behind the main killer, who suffers from a cleft palate, which is not pointed to in the movie, though the character in the movie has the scar, e.g. all muffin top, no muffin. |
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