text: Hollywood has churned out yet another garbage that's wildly overhyped and underwhelming on a first-time viewing basis. Hannibal is bad, terrible, inept, lame, droll, idiotic, contrived, laughable and utterly atrocious (no pun intended). Minor spoilers follow...<br /><br />This movie has huge logic holes - more than any Bruckheimer/Bay movie - or for that matter - any movie that exemplify the indulgence of Hollywood exaggeration. It's a slick Hollywood production designed to cash in on Hannibal Lector mania, directed by "so-somber-he-takes-this-way-too-seriously" hack director Ridley Scott and produced by a hack Italian producer with an inflated ego whose credo is "doesn't matter whether film is s**t, money is good".<br /><br />I can't get over the fact that acclaimed screenwriters David Mamet and Steven Zaillian wrote this tripe adapted from a lame and pretentious book by a good-novelist-turned-hack-author Thomas Harris. David and Steven - well-known and immensely talented screenwriters - wasted their effort on a poor screenplay in exchange for fat paychecks. Another factor in the disappointment of this film.<br /><br />There are too many ludicrous scenes to list that are laughable in clunky execution and poor logic e.g. Starling/Pazzi cell-phone in the midst of Lecter pursuit that turns up Inspector Pazzi as the victim. Not to mention laughably bad dialogues delivered by Tony Hopkins with a smirk and Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta and others who cannot act with the straight face. Hopkins gives the true meaning of "scenery-chewing" along with hammy acting by Gary Oldman as a deformed psychopath bent on exacting revenge against Lecter.<br /><br />The gore effect is good, but only serves to repulse rather than provide suspense which is notably absent from Hannibal. The predecessor - Silence of the Lambs - is more believable with tension and suspense. Suspense is what made Silence of the Lamb work as a spectacular mix of psychological horror and thriller, not to mention superbly written and tensely directed. The "brain dinner" sequence is so laughably fake it borders on self-parody.<br /><br />The ending is kinda blatant and idiotic - are we supposed to believe that Lecter is still a menace to society with the last shot establishing his glittering eye glaring at you? Ooh, scary... <br /><br />