This new show is based upon the Thomas Harris book, Red Dragon. Harris also wrote the novel The Silence of the Lambs, whose film adaptation won the top five Oscar categories in its year. This new show follows the relationship between Will Graham, a special investigator of the FBI, and Dr. Hannibal Lector, everyone's favorite cannibalistic psychiatrist. It takes place before Lector's incarceration. To put it simply, I was not impressed.
In my sincerest opinion, I feel that the whole episode was copied poorly from Kubrick's production notes on The Shining. One particular bathroom scene took place in the same sort of red-colored room with the urinals on the left with little red partitions and the long row of sinks on the right. Real original. Not! If you want to make a shout-out to Kubrick, then do what Jonathan Demme did in regards to Hitchcock in The Silence of the Lambs and put stuffed birds reminiscent of Psycho in a storage garage or something. Do not copy an entire set that you will only ruin. The makers of this new show also tried to make epic imagery with blood that we have all seen done better a million times. And what was with the levitating girl? Did you really have to waste money on that?
Probably one of the bigger issues that made the show remind me of a cheap Coach purse knock-off were the transitions. Just before Kubrick's bathroom is shown, Graham is shown underwater, then is revealed to be coming up from the sink. Now, a good director would have had another sink made with a see-through bottom to rig the camera under in order to make the transition from the sink double to the actual sink unnoticeable. Here it was obvious that a completely different structure was used to show Graham underwater. If the reason for this was time and/or money, then they should have thought about that when they made that girl levitate for no reason. Another sloppy transition comes later with screws or something shown against a nice clean backdrop when they really should have been shot against dirt; it transitions to people working in dirt. Tip: if you cannot do fancy transitions well, then don't do them! It's only going to be another point against you.
I hate to grill the director further because he has directed an episode of Breaking Bad, but he and the creator really made poor choices with this pilot. My following grievances are more aimed at the creator, producers, and casting directors, but of course the director has an effect too. Now, obviously this show was not going to have a Lector quite like the one Hopkins created back in 1991, but they could have at least hired someone who was going to put sweat and tears toward making the best Lector he possibly could. Instead, they chose Mads Mikkelsen, who simply does not fit. He makes Lector, who could really make or break the show, seem like a bad imitation of Hopkins' creation. His properness is too pronounced when he eats, he is not creepy enough in the right parts, and he just isn't Hannibal. After three movies in a row with Hopkins' perfection, why would anyone settle to make a show entitled Hannibal with a mediocre Hannibal? It just doesn't make any sense. When Hannibal the movie was made just over a decade ago, and Jodie Foster would not be a part of it, they had another great actress play Clarice -- Julianne Moore. Although I hate to admit it, she was a phenomenal Clarice if you read the book (and forget about Foster's flawless version of her). No, she wasn't the same Clarice from The Silence of the Lambs, but she got the job done. As the crucial character known as Hannibal Lector, Mikelsen does not get the job done, and with him I cannot see the show lasting another season.
Although The Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorite movies of all time, I watched this pilot with an open mind. I gave it a chance, but it blew it. I always give new shows a second chance with the subsequent episode, so I will watch the next one, but my expectations are incredibly low. Thoughts?
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