Director Brett Ratner has the unenviable task of helming the first of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter series, "Red Dragon". Filmed once already by Michael Mann in 1986 as "Manhunter", Mr. Ratner's version seems to have been made solely to give Anthony Hopkins a sense of closure: for better or worse, he has now played the role as often as he possibly could. And, of course, nobody does it better.
Surely, by now, Mr. Hopkins could play his Oscar-winning role with his eyes closed. He doesn't, incidentally, opting instead to deliver each scene with a wide-eyed, unblinking stare as if to give physicality to his much-heralded psychological insight. Interestingly, Lecter is more of a background character in this first installment, playing consultant to FBI Agent Will Graham (Edward Norton, in a fine understated performance). Though the scenes between Lecter and Graham are well-acted and fun to watch, they contain none of the tension or dread of the Lecter/Clarice scenes which propelled "The Silence of the Lambs" so far above any other installment in the series.
Agent Graham, as it turns out, is the one who caught Lecter, in a thrilling opening sequence which the rest of the film can never live up to. The shock of their confrontation causes Graham to retire until he is inevitably called back to service by his old boss Jack Crawford (a woefully miscast Harvey Keitel) to aid in the capture of the "Tooth Fairy", a maniac who slays entire families. Despite Graham's initial protestations to his wife (Mary-Louise Parker), he takes the case and it doesn't take long for Graham to enlist the help of his old pal Lecter. There is some tension for a while as Lecter plays on Graham's fear of getting too close to another vicious killer, but that character thread is dropped fairly quickly and before long Graham is right back in the game and "Dragon" becomes an average cat-and-mouse hunt.
Mr. Ratner, of "Rush Hour" fame (if you can call it that), actually acquits himself well in the tall shadow of Jonathan Demme, imbuing the film with a sense of danger, though not much suspense. Some of that is the fault of the script by Oscar-winning "Silence" scribe Ted Tally. Aside from the few playful scenes featuring Dr. Lecter, the rest of the film is a rote serial killer genre piece, complete with a hysterically misunderstood maniac played with gusto by Ralph Fiennes. Mr. Harris, of course, revels in creating these criminals that are only found in movies. Hysterically, Mr. Fiennes' character not only falls in love with a blind woman (Emily Watson, whose wide, emotive face gives the character more weight than it deserves) but he actually appears to hold down a steady job, though not one that could even pay the heating bills in that enormous mansion he occupies. Despite all the ludicrous background information we get on Mr. Fiennes' Francis Dolarhyde, his real motivations are never explored leaving him to appear as nothing more than a distant cinematic relative of Norman Bates.
All this, of course, is beside the point. If "Red Dragon" had actually been made and released prior to the superior and definitive "Silence of the Lambs," it might have been a chilling serial killer thriller. Unfortunately, "Lambs" has been referenced, imitated and flat-out copied so many times that "Dragon" elicits more laughs than screams. The unknown is, of course, far scarier than the familiar and "Silence" had the advantage of introducing us to Hannibal Lecter. At this point, the character has become part of pop culture. He is the cuddly cannibalistic psychopath with a penchant for fava beans and little left to frighten us. Sure, Hopkins' delivery is as good as ever, but even he seems to be straining to find ways to keep his dialogue interesting - stressing words like "oodles" and "dullards" as if savoring a fine cheese.
"Dragon" is a competent entry into the Lecter canon, far more so than Ridley Scott's bombastic "Hannibal". Mr. Ratner's direction is reverent, if not enlightening. But at this point it feels like Hannibal has gone back to the buffet table once too often.
