 |
|
|
|
Red Dragon (2002)
 email this review to a friend
Movie Review by Ezra
April 7th, 2007
|  |
This film has so much going for it ---- an impeccable cast, a good script, great cinematography ---- it's a shame that the project was given to such a mediocre director as Brett Ratner.
For those of you who have been living on Mars for the past decade, Red Dragon is the prequel to Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs; in other words, it is a reworking of the novel upon which Michael Mann's beautiful film Manhunter is also based. The story concerns FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton), who enlists the help of imprisoned psychoanalyst Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, in his third time playing the role) to catch serial killer Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes).
The cast, which also includes Emily Watson, Harvey Kietel and Philip Seymour Hoffman, is excellent; Hoffman, as sleazy reporter Fred Loundes, steals the show with five minutes of screen time. The score, by Danny Elfman, is haunting and inspired ---- probably by a better film than this one. The weakest link is Ratner, whose direction is rife with cliches, awkward transitions and derivative visual style; in fact, Ratner rips off whole scenes from Manhunter, and the visual tone of the film is directly lifted from The Silence of the Lambs. Instead of deep, dark chills like Silence, or over-the-top gore-comedy like Ridley Scott's Hannibal, Ratner serves up middle-of-the-road entertainment full of cheap "made-ya-jump" flash cuts and other hokey, predictable scare-tactics.
This, much like Gus van Sant's Psycho remake, is a project with no real reason for existence; this film has already been made, better, in 1986 by Michael Mann. The only improvement in this film over Manhunter is the casting of Emily Watson. This performance, while excellent, does not warrant such an ultimately forgettable film.
email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
Sorry, you must be a member to add comments to reviews.
Join or Login. |
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS
|
