So, the Hannibal Lecter series makes it into a trilogy with this prequel. But it's not really a prequel. That's one of the first things that made it disappointing for me. I thought this would be a movie about Hannibal's time before prison, and it is ... probably just a couple days before he is captured. This movie is really just a different version of the original Silence of the Lambs - with a devoted fan of Hannibal's carrying out the crimes. We shuffle the major characters around and throw in the gender wild card to find the new cast. Clarisse/Graham is played by Edward Norton. Hannibal is obviously played by Anthony Hopkins. This, time the bad guy is Ralph Fiennes and his girlfriend is Emily Watson. Throw in a pesky reporter played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and you have most of the cast. Surprisingly, this talented crew couldn't really produce a good movie.

Nothing new is revealed in this story. Additionaly, it seems that this story is only lightly teathered to Hannibal Lecter. Really, with just a handful of scene rewrites, Lecter could have been removed and it could have just been Norton vs Fiennes.

Fiennes's character is too much like character from Se7en. He is part acheologist/scrapbook collector and mostly insane. He also wasn't that scary.

Sort of dull in the end.