Hannibal "Potage"

     Everybody remembers Anthony Hopkins as the famous Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  That is fact.  In 1991, when he won an Academy Award for his role as the sociopathic doctor, he engrained himself in our culture as the epitome of fear.  Hopkin’s portrayal of Hannibal was even chosen by the American Film Institute as the #1 movie villain.  Empire magazine lists him in the top 5 Greatest Characters of All Time.  I will speak for everyone on this.  If you watch Silence of the Lambs you will get chills when Hannibal looks out at you from your screen, looming over you (if you have a large enough TV), staring directly into your soul (no matter the screen size).

           

     I watched these movies growing up and I’ve always thought Hannibal Lecter was the most chilling movie villain ever.  The Best.  Hands Down.  Shut up Darth Vader fans, he was good, but Hannibal Lecter would have Vader crying in a corner before ripping off his face and eating his liver…with some fava beans…and a nice chianti.  Sorry, couldn’t reasist.

            

     You can understand my apprehension when I learned NBC was creating a Hannibal Lecter series without Anthony Hopkins.  How could they pull this off with THE Hannibal Lecter??  To say the least, this was a show I had to watch even if I thought the show was destined for disaster.

            

     The daunting task of filling Anthony Hopkins’ shoes rests on Mad Mikkelsen.  LE CHIFFRE!!  I loved him in Casino Royale so I had faith in him as an actor, but come on,  Anthony Hopkins.  After watching the first three episodes, to be honest, I’m still not sure.  What Mikkelsen brings to the character is different than what Hopkins brought.  Hopkins had a magnetic aura that filled you with unease, but drew you in against your will.  He would look into your soul and become your fears, but he was so damned well cultured.  Mikkelsen is still cultured, but that magnetic aura is only reserved for instances and fleeting moments.  On one hand, I miss that intensity in the character, on the other hand I believe Mikkelsen’s character more as a human because he seems more natural.  The fact that he can be so charming and normal is, in some ways, more frightening.  He lures you in with charm, but you know that he kills and eats people for the love of power.  For these reasons I’m choosing to withhold my definite opinion on Mikkelsen until I see more of his performance. 

            

      With that being said, I actually do enjoy the show.  The fact that NBC would give this show thirteen episodes on the strength of the script alone, along with the 10 o’clock slot, which puts it just out of the safe harbor hours, makes me think that this show could be heading really cool places.  To me the most interesting part of the show are the character arcs so far. 

SPOILERS

For instance:  Will Graham, played by Hugh Daney, develops paternal feelings toward a serial killer’s daughter after he shoots said serial killer.  I don’t think I’ve seen a character arc take this turn, but it’s completely justified within the character.

SAFE AGAIN

     These character arcs, great dialogue, and enough twists and turns to keep your head spinning make “Hannibal” extremely fun to watch.  Some of the most fun for me are the scenes where Mikkelsen gets to stretch his legs as Hannibal.  His best line so far: He tells Agent Crawford, played by Laurence Fishburne, that he would love to “Have you and you mother for dinner.”  That is classic Lecter.  Mikkelsen doesn’t deliver the line like Hopkins would, but it’s unsettling how he almost slipped that line by me and I was looking for it.  He says it with a sense of nonchalance and pleasantry that you almost don’t catch the double meaning.  That, to me, is great.

           

     Another aspect of the story I was worried about was the visuals.  The Lecter movies have always been graphic in their depiction for crime.  I find the gruesome visuals important to solidify how bad these people are and how dangerous Hannibal can be despite his well mannered demeanor.  As it turns out, I worried for nothing.  “Hannibal” has some VERY unsettling and gruesome images.  (I’m talking to you human/mushroom farm.)  Sometimes I forget that I’m watching a show on NBC when I see a naked woman impaled on deer antlers. To my knowledge you only see this kind of graphic storytelling on AMC or other cable channels, not so much on a major channel like NBC. 

OKAY, WE’RE MOVING INTO SPOILER TERRITORY!  ARE YOU READY TO BE SPOILED?

            

     One of the more interesting character arcs is Hannibal’s.  He seems to be taking people under his wing and trying to turn them into killers like himself.  In the first episode he called Gareth Hobbs and warned him that Will was on his trail which caused a chain of events leading to Will shooting Hobbs.  This caused some commotion because this was Will’s first time taking another human life and Hannibal almost desperately gets Will to confess that he enjoyed killing Hobbs.

           

     In a similar fashion, when Abigail Hobbs (Gareth’s daughter) kills one of her father’s victim’s brothers Hannibal helps her hide the body and, very much like he did Clarice Starling, starts to get inside her head.

            

     My early theory is he’s trying to prove that everyone is a killer like him, therefore making him normal instead of evil.  This seems very un-Hannibal-esque, but he was so desperate to hear Will admit that he enjoyed killing Hobbs I started feeling like he needed to know that Will was like him and he wasn’t alone.  I get the same feeling with Abigail.

            

As a last and side note, how long do you think Freddie Lounds, the tabloid blogger, will last until Hannibal kills her?

He has deemed her as “very rude,” and everyone knows that Hannibal hates rude people.