Hey folks, Harry here... It seems that while the majority of the reviews we've gotten have been positive for RED DRAGON there is a dissenting view to be had. Meanwhile, rumors are showing up everywhere about Brett Ratner taking over SUPERMAN from McG with the utterly retarded casting of Keanu Reeves as the Man of Steel... in what would be the worst all time casting decisions ever. Meanwhile, from what I'm hearing, McG still believes he's doing it. What's really happening? We'll see, right now there's a cloud of rumor and very little facts. Here's the not so happy opinion on Ratner's run on Lecter...
Hey all,
Long time reader, first time spy. I’ve seen some Red Dragon reviews on the site and wanted to chime in after catching the film in New York at the AMC Empire 25 in Times Square tonight. It’s a highly problematic film, albeit an occasionally entertaining one. This is clearly the most commercial-minded and obvious movie about Hannibal Lecter yet; Jonathan Demme’s psychological subtlety and Ridley Scott’s visual virtuosity (and Michael Mann’s command of both) are completely lost in the hands of director Brett Ratner. Ratner’s storytelling abilities are clunky and his visual imagination is practically nonexistent.
The film begins rather inauspiciously: a pair of pre-credit scenes at the symphony and a dinner party are poorly conceived and executed, attempting to establish the dichotomy between Lecter’s high-society intellectual tastes and primitive culinary ones. It just doesn’t work; the dialogue is extraordinarily hokey and overly expository. Ed Norton’s consequent character introduction is just sloppy, and his first scene with Lecter as FBI Agent Will Graham unsuccessfully attempts to fit the complexities of a long-standing relationship into a dull three-minute scene. (If Ratner’s work was truly inspired, he would have intercut the scene’s ensuing brawl with the symphony sequence.) The opening credits do much the same thing, using a montage of headlines to lazily fill in long gaps of the story.
It takes some time for Ratner to break his rhythm of two-shot, plot-heavy dialogue scenes, but the pacing becomes gradually less erratic as the story unfolds and Red Dragon at least becomes damn near watchable. His frequent use of close-ups and establishing shots (with locale names helpfully placed over them) does become near soporific, though, and the overbearing score (particularly in the scene when Norton peruses the first victims’ house) is consistently frustrating. The plot isn’t much better, just typical serial killer fodder with a murderer on the loose, the Tooth Fairy, breaking mirrors and slaughtering families in his wake. Norton’s Graham is pressured by his boss – an underused (the key word for the casting in this film) Harvey Keitel – to return to work to assist on the case after a long sabbatical following his capture of Lecter. Graham then looks to Hannibal to help him put the pieces together.
As good as Hopkins is in this near-cameo role, I received the impression that he was just coasting here; all the guy has to do is not blink and speak in a creepy voice and he’ll receive plenty of critical and popular laudation. (Brian Cox’s take on the role in Manhunter has always been more restrained and interesting to me.) Norton seems to be sleepwalking through much of the film, and not consciously as in Fight Club. As the Tooth Fairy, though, Ralph Fiennes turns in some of the most nuanced work in the film, impressive considering the roster at hand. Emily Watson plays Fiennes’s blind sometimes-girlfriend, almost-victim with her typical wide-eyed wonder and compassionate expressions, despite having little material to work with. One of the true crimes of the film, though, is how it wastes national treasure Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who appears briefly as a tabloid reporter and is given very little to say or do; even in his single standout scene, the material is clearly holding him back.
Writer Ted Tally’s script is definitely weaker than his Silence Of The Lambs effort; Red Dragon lacks the latter film’s polished and graceful plot advancement and character exploration. When Graham’s wife and child are threatened in later scenes, I found it tough to care about the outcome because we never have the chance to get to know them as people. They’re both pawns, mere plot elements in Tally’s hands. (When we see Graham’s wife practicing shooting a gun for no particular reason in one scene, you can practically hear Tally shouting “foreshadowing!” from the page.) The allusions to William Blake’s artwork are treated in much the same matter: window-dressing, not enriching elements to the movie themes. The recurrent stabs (pun very much intended) at humor fall flat. While I won’t count the many unintentional laughs Red Dragon provoked (“Antique wheelchairs? Those aren’t the kinds of things you keep around the house!”), the attempts at lightening the film’s mood and Ratner’s unfortunate tendency to aim for the lowest common denominator together undermine the movie’s overall potency. The cumulative blame for Red Dragon must fall on Ratner’s shoulders, whose work here is merely, disappointingly competent – nothing less and certainly nothing more.
Until later, kind sirs,
- Extension 23
And here's a reviewer that saw it too and had this to say...
Harry,
I know you've already posted a lot of Red Dragon reviews this week, but after seeing the negative, ridiculous latest I felt inclined to chime in with my lengthy rebuttal:
*This review is completely spoiler-free.*
Cynics, skeptics and purists be damned-- despite being a proud Manhunter DVD owner and huge fan of Thomas Harris' source novel, I am ecstatic to report Red Dragon is a film of enormous psychological and visceral impact which renders Michael Mann's inferior adaptation moot. Whereas Manhunter is hopelessly dated and features a positively awful leading performance from William Peterson, director Brett "Antichrist To Film Geeks Worldwide" Ratner and The Silence of the Lambs scripter Ted Tally have expertly compacted Harris' expansive narrative into an angular, but still dense new entity. Featuring flawless performances from Anthony Hopkins (as good as ever), Edward Norton (with a sorrowful understatement), Ralph Fiennes (creepily effective) in the leads, and a handful of indentative supporting turns (particularly from the always fabulous Philip Seymour Hoffman as a seedy, tabloid journalis! t and the remarkable Emily Watson as an angelic, blind woman), it's not hyperbole to declare Red Dragon the best thriller of the new millennium.
___________________________
The questions nagging most buffs' brains probably are:
1) Could the man behind Money Talks, Rush Hour, The Family Man and Rush Hour 2 actually have crafted a superb, thoughtful, chilling, block of adult entertainment? Could the man behind that rancid quintuplet actually make something that isn't disposable?
A resounding hells, yeah. Red Dragon is the film Ratner will most likely be remembered for (especially since he's allegedly returning to helm Rush Hour 3 soon-- why he'd wanna waste his considerable talent on that shit I do not know) and this movie alone will make for an impressive legacy. Working with famed cinematographer Dante Spinotti (who also shot Manhunter, and is possibly the best DP in the whole business with other credits including Heat, L.A. Confidential, The Insider and Wonder Boys; he has an unrivaled capacity for finding great aesthetic beauty in the mundane), Ratner seems to have taken his cue from Jonathan Demme's lensing on Silence of the Lambs. He favors a lot of simple, centrally-framed close-ups (and with such an astonishing array of actors at his disposal, he has good reason to), each interaction cut together with patient elegance. But don't think this is a visually bland film-- as static as Ratner'! s camera often is, there's a plethora of truly iconic images, masterful, painterly compositions that advance the story in a single shot or two. Plus everything is exquisitely lit and drenched in this gorgeously dirty, high-contrast, heavily saturated, silky foam.
2) Did Ratner overdose on violence a la Ridley Scott & Hannibal?
No way, not even close. While there are necessary sprinklings of graphic horror, Ratner's mantra seems to have been subtly and implication always beat a show-all gorefest. Red Dragon has the perfect amount of bloodshed; enough so you know you're watching a powerful R-rated film about two vicious serial killers, but not enough that the word gratuitous would ever enter into your vocabulary. Again, his model seems to have been Demme.
3) You keep mentioning frickin' Jonathan Demme. Is Red Dragon just a Silence of the Lambs rip-off?
Certainly not, but sadly there will inevitably be those aforementioned cynics/skeptics/purists who label it as such. These are the curmudgeons who are so snobbish and close-minded, that they are unable to accept Brett Ratner--by virtue of his past credits--has actually made a pretty amazing film. These are same the bastards who are unable to recognize that Red Dragon is very faithful to its text, just as Lambs was, and since the two novels are so different the films are inherently as different. These are the same hidebound fiends who are unable to recognize that even though Lambs will always be the apex of Hannibal Lecter film achievements there is still room for other glorious accomplishments (which embrace and pay specific tribute--right down to Dragon's aping of Lambs' small, courier font title cards--to their predecessors). And perhaps these are the same people who maintain that Hopkins' portrayal of Lecter pails in comparison to Brian Cox's Manhunter Lecter, beca! use you quickly realize, these are the people who must always tout the underdog as the superior artistic endeavor even at the expense of actually being accurate...
4) Well if Red Dragon's so fucking great, why the heck will Silence always be the Lecter pinnacle?
Three reasons: A) Any way you slice it, Clarice Starling is a more complex character than Norton's Will Graham. Which is not to say Graham's not very fascinating, he is. But Starling's stiff-as-hell competition, one of cinema's most effective female characterizations ever. B) Consequently, the off-the-charts compelling rating of the Starling/Lecter dynamic is unrivaled. Lecter and Graham have a history and Norton and Hopkins' wonderfully written interplay practically slow-burn the screen, but it still can't quite compare. C) Sheer novelty. The fact that Silence of the Lambs was first, most definitely accounts for a lot. I grew up with Lambs, it's an integral part of our pop-cultural consciousness. I mean, Christ, just how many Lecter thrillers can the Academy award Best Picture to?
5) Wait, so does Red Dragon do anything better than Lambs?
Absolutely. Dragon's Francis Dolarhyde, A.K.A. The Tooth Fairy, is a fuller, richer, more sympathetic portrait of a serial-killing monster than compared to Lamb's drawing of Buffalo Bill. I guess some people get turned off as soon as they hear "sympathetic" used to describe a murderer, worried that means either the film will go through extravagant, obscene lengths to present the killer kindly or else the killer's motivation will be too pat. Neither is a problem in Dragon: Ratner and Tally effortlessly cram just enough Dolarhyde backstory into the mix. A tease here, a unobtrusive hint there and everything pays off. I'm all for ambiguity when crafting villains, but frankly even Demme on Lamb's Criterion commentary track notes that he really regrets not referencing Buffalo Bill's abusive background a little more. (Though one more thing: admittedly, for sheer fear factor, by virtue of being a big movie star Ralph Fiennes just can't eclipse the truly terrifying Ted Levine ! as Bill.)
___________________________
Many people view Ridley Scott's Hannibal as a blight on Hannibal Lecter's character, a blasphemous reduction of everything that made the guy so memorable in the first place. Red Dragon is Lecter's redemption. To all the people that say this film never needed to be made, independent of its innumerable production and acting merits, you mustn't not forget that--at the very least--Red Dragon respects Thomas Harris' original vision of Lecter, while shading in with deft charcoal strokes a few critical (subtle) aspects of Lecter's personal history. I'd argue that Lecter, seen in The Silence of the Lambs alone, is an incomplete characterization. Michael Mann was unable to recognize his biggest asset when transferring Red Dragon from book to screen. As such, he inappropriately pared down Lecter's role in the novel and thus most of us came to know and perversely love Hannibal Lecter through Lambs. This love formed because of the words Ted Tally (courtesy of Thomas Harris) put in Lecte! r's mouth. Well, the master's met his maker one last time. Red Dragon is Hannibal's much-needed return to form. Sequentially Lecter's birth, but literally his swan song.
There's no better way to see him go.
-Jared Sapolin
www.jaredsapolin.com
