Forget everything about the novel.  You know the saying, there are some things that just some things that look better on screen.  Sure, this is no Silence of the Lambs, but that’s because the two storylines are completely different.
      Anthony Hopkins explodes in his role as Hannibal.  I’m almost upset we didn’t see this much action from him the first time around!  Hopkins knows his role, and Hannibal knows his host.  The two create a symbiosis and understand each other completely.  Yes, Hannibal is completely different, in a sense.  The last time we saw him, he was locked in a cell.  Now, he’s out and about, roaming Italy in search of good food and drink.
      Julianne Moore should have nothing to worry about.  There is nothing to fear here with Moore replacing Jodie Foster.  Within the first half-hour, Moore takes in Clarice Starling and plays her well.  She’s true to the character, and that is what matters.
      Set 10 years after Silence of the Lambs, we find Clarice Starling discredited and at the end of her FBI career after a drug-raid goes bad.  The FBI gives her the opportunity to regain her broken name, however.  She must track down Hannibal Lecter.
      Unfortunately, Starling is not the only one after Hannibal.  Rinaldo Pazzi, an Italian Investigator, has found Hannibal living in Italy and tips Mason Verger off.  Verger, the only known survivor of Hannibal’s victims, sets out on a quest to capture Hannibal and then feed him to bovine-sized pigs.
      Hopkins and Moore politely share their star-time on screen.  One minute we’re in Italy with Hannibal (who is spending his lovely vacation by slitting people’s intestines in-between art lectures) and the next we’re in America with Starling, who spends most of her time in a basement looking at old evidence.  The entire movie is spent eagerly anticipation the moment when Moore and Hopkins would come on screen together.  Unfortunately, this does not happen until the later half of the movie.  When they do finally share a scene together, their chemistry is incredibly energetic.  With every teasing touch Hannibal in DC, Hannibal swings right by her on a carousel and touches her hair.  There is more sexual tension here than there is between the galaxies two most sexually deprived humans, Mulder and Scully!  There is more guts and gore in this than the original by far.  A horrifying moment when Hannibal stabs a man in the genitals, causing him to bleed to death, had me squirming in my seat for 10 minutes.  Life-sized pigs enjoy snacking on several humans, as they crush their victims skulls, brain exposed.  Quite a nasty sight for the squeamish. 
       For those who hated the ending of the book, you’ll be happy to know that the end is completely different from that if the novel.  I will say this however, with all the passion in this movie I am deeply saddened that Thomas Harris did not stick with the original ending.  No real sense of closure is found at the ending, yet it is replaced respectively with an understanding between Hannibal and Starling, a sort of bond.
      Here’s hoping for another sequel!  Until then, could you kindly pass the fauve beans?  GRADE A-