Nobody told me "Hannibal" was a comedy.

[Akira Tubo]

I mean, it had giant man-eating pigs for crying out loud!

But poor ol' Ridley Scott, who scored his one success (in my book) with Blade Runner, just can't make it come together as usual.

Ray Liotta and Gary Oldman were the only members of the cast to realize they were in a comedy and played it up well.

And where was all the gore I heard so much about?  The "gore" in the face peeling scene looked like red paint on Gary Oldman's face.

The GIANT MAN-EATING PIGS sniffed around some mannequins with red paint on them, is that gore?

Ray Liotta's brain was exposed (Ahh!  A brain!  Eek!  A brain!) but it wasn't all that gory.

I can only imagine someone who's never seen a gory film would label this as gory.

[Steven Millan]

                   Yep:just another crazy statement that someone has made about "Hannibal"("It's a comedy","It's racist","it heavily sucks",etc,etc,etc).
                     All of these statements(there are many more out there on the web to seek out,and you will find them),and yet,no one has ever admitted that "Hannibal" is the closest thing that we'll ever see to what would have happened if Lucio Fulci had made a big name studio-backed,big budgeted mainstream film with %100 full control over it,as well as any big name studios' attempt at a Lucio Fulci-style movie.
                    Next comment,please....

[Neville]

Can you believe I actually liked it? It is not the typical sequel, actually is a sort of opposite. If the first one was called "silence of the lambs" this is "Noise of the pigs". Instead of an FBI manual of investigation we got a story full of passion, instead of a cold, rational Clarice Starling movie, we get a bloody, operistic Hannibal flick.

About the gore: Yeah, you are right, I never see gore but I found it quite gory. You have to admit it is above the media in mainstream movies. Oh, and you forgot Pazzi's viscerae hitting the floor in your account.

[john]

>But poor ol' Ridley Scott, who scored his one success (in my book) with Blade
>Runner, just can't make it come together as usual.

 What about Alien?

[jmc]

Good point about it being Fulci-like.  The scenes with Pazzi seemed almost right out of a giallo.   Incidentally, I thought that was the only sucessful part of the movie from a dramatic standpoint--the detective is really the only sympathetic character in the entire movie!

Best parts of the movie were the pigs and Gary Oldman doing his best Jimmy Stewart.   I liked the part of the behind-the-scenes stuff that showed how they trained the pigs.  It didn't seem much different from the method used by the characters in the movie!

[Akira Tubo]

"if Lucio Fulci had made a big name studio-backed,big budgeted mainstream film with %100 full control over it"

Thank goodness that never happened!

"Oh, and you forgot Pazzi's viscerae hitting the floor in your account."

Yeah, I forgot that.  In fact, I forgot about Pazzi altogether - and I'd finished the movie just a few minutes before making the post!  Maybe I fell asleep during his part or something.

"What about Alien?"

Alien never had any effect on me besides inciting boredom.  It has never scared me or struck me as a particularly good movie.  Were I a few years older, it would probably occupy the same space in my mind as Independance Day does now: the first movie I walked out on.  Keep in mind Alien was about the first sci-fi horror film I saw as a small child, and I still found it boring and predicatable.  Mom and Dad made me go to bed because I was ruining the movie for them, griping about how much it sucked.

[J.R.]

>But poor ol' Ridley Scott, who scored his one success (in my book) with Blade
>Runner, just can't make it come together as usual.

You're welcome to your opinion, but Black Hawk Down is one of the best war movies ever. It's intense and gruelling, and I loved every minute. And, I admit it, I kind of liked White Squall. That's right, you heard me.

[Akira Tubo]

Oh, Ridley made Black Hawk Down?  I did not know that.  I'll have to put it on my to see list.

[Squishy]

Ridley Scott has a history of spectactular successes, spectactular failures, and lots and lots of "meh"--and any given two people will disagree on which of his films fall into each category, and why. For example, I'd give Douglas Trumbull and the production designers of Blade Runner, and Siggy and HRGiger of Alien the lion's share of praise for those movies, not Scott--but if G.I.Jane is anyone's fault, it's Demi Moore's. Doesn't necessarily make me--or anyone else--any smarter (or stupider) than another person with their own opinions. I find Scott overly obsessed with visuals and not really skilled at telling a coherent story, but there are certainly worse directors out there. When he's backed up with good cast and crew--especially good writers--his films are great.

[Squishy]

...hooray, I misspelled "spectacular"--twice!!

[Neville]

I completely agree with you, Squishy. I mean, not in that you misspelled "spectacular", but in that Ridley Scott is more an image stilist than a storyteller, and that the only difference between a bad Scott movie and a good one is the script and the crew involved. A reviewer here in Spain defined him recently as an orchestra director. Actually, anyone with half a brain should admit that there's no really differences in Scott's work in "Blade Runner" and in "G.I: Janes". If the first is a master piece it is because a wonderful script and first rate crew (actors, music, photography and sets are great), whereas a dumb script and poor acting completely ruin "G.I. Jane".

This does not mean Scott is an incompetent. Anyone who worked so hard to give "G.I. Jane" a polished, stylish look has my admiration.

[C. Hill]

It's not just that we see Liotta's brain that's disturbing, it's the fact that there he is, sitting at the table with half his skull missing like it's not big thing.  And he even eats part of the damn thing and likes it!  He of course becomes less coherent afterwards.  And it all looks incredibly real.

I gotta say, I've seen tons of gore before I saw this movie, but even I was taken aback by this scene.  For that alone I think that scene was a great accomplishment for big budget films.  You wouldn't think they'd have the balls to show something like that.

[Law Dog]

I'm just incredibly jaded by all the video crap I've ingested over the years. Hannibal was so over the top, it basically came off as a big budget version of a Full Moon picture. I guess your common movie going plebe just did see it (which I could gauge by the fact that some of the scenes had me laughing when nobody else was), but it was so ridiculous that I'd have to label this one in the same category as Dead Alive.