Julianne Moore is not Jodi Foster. Hopkins is always brilliant, but even he cannot save this mediocre at best film. The plot was pretty lame and Liotta was quite awful.

I'm a huge fan of the triology of Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of The Lamb, Hannibal, and Red Dragon) and I find Hannibal which is done by Antony Hopkins is particularly interesting. This film, however, was the least interesting one. Maybe because there are many details taken out to fit the time duration of the film which weakened the plot.

Julianne Moore ruined this character, and the movie was messy. I had to rewind a few times because it didn't make sense. Failure of a story.

Silence Of The Lambs was creepy almost in a classic 1980s fashion like its predecessor Manhunter filmed in the 80s. Hannibal, on the other hand, has an updated feel most likely because of the advancement of film technology from 1991 to 2001. Simply put, films just got better during that decade. Quite a few critics like to contrast Silence with Hannibal, but there is no reason to do this. They are two different story lines shot completely differently from one another. What makes this film stand out over the other are the gruesome gory scenes filmed slowly, deliberately designed to test the squeamishness of the viewer. Silence is an amusement park haunted house where no one ever gets hurt, Hannibal is that same haunted house in which a murdering psychopath lives undetected. I don't recommend this film to anyone who is sensitive to torture scenes or sudden violent death scenes, no matter his or her age. And children should not see this film until they are old enough to fully grasp that there is evil in this world which is beyond what most of us ever experience--at least physically. Psychically is another matter altogether. At the end of the film Hannibal makes the statement that St. Paul hated women. This is patently untrue, but we must consider the source of the statement--a man with a seared conscience who enjoys his kills with as much relish as anyone who immerses himself in his favorite hobby.The blatant child abuse at the end of this film could have been avoided since it added nothing to the story whatsoever. But once again, we must consider the source of the abuse--and steel ourselves against the human nature inside all of us which could, and very easily, create psychopathic destruction given the perfect conditions. More and more the world in which we live becomes that cesspool of perfect bacterial conditions.