Review: Red Dragon (2002)

Red Dragon

IMDb rate: 7,2

Genre: Thriller

So I stumbled across Red Dragon today. And I realized that I had not seen it yet!

I've seen Silence of the Lambs probably a hundred times already, Hannibal maybe twice and I even watched Hannibal Rising. But Red Dragon, nope. I also own all the books but I also did not read it. It's quite strange because I did read all the other ones so I wonder why I never read it before...

Anyway, Red Dragon is not really a horror movie, but it does contain the legend Hannibal Lecter, so a (short?) review is almost necessary on this blog :).

FBI Agent Will Graham has been called out of early retirement to catch a serial killer, known by authorities as "The Tooth Fairy". He asks for the help of his arch-nemesis, Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, so that he can be able to catch "The Tooth Fairy" and bring him to justice. The only problem is that "The Tooth Fairy" is getting inside information about Graham and his family from none other than Dr. Lecter.

I was not very surprised that I enjoyed watching Red Dragon a lot. It's a very good movie. I've seen the original Manhunter but I personally did not like it. I'm glad they made a remake of it because Anthony Hopkins is just simply Hannibal Lecter. Brian Cox... not so much. 

Anthony Hopkins does not have very much screen time, and while that's a sad thing, it was not very bothering in the movie. The movie itself is very tensive, also Hannibal is not very scary in this movie, since he does not try to impress Will Graham, so I don't think that more screen-time would have made a difference. 

Of course, the movie is not only about Hannibal Lecter which forces me to discuss other people too. Not that this is a bad thing because the acting is simply flawless. Edward Norton plays Will Graham and as always he's amazing. I think he's an excellent choice to play Will Graham. 

Next to Norton were also other brilliant actors like Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson, Harvey Keitel and Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

I would like to read the book someday because there were some points that were a bit unclear for me. I think a bigger story of the Tooth Fairy would have been nice. The motives were a bit unclear for me. I also found that the Tooth Fairy was quite a weak character. 

At this point I would rate Silence of the Lambs as the best one, followed by Red Dragon and followed closely by Hannibal. I enjoyed the movie Hannibal Rising but it hardly felt as a Hannibal Lecter movie, so that one comes last for me.

Recently I saw one episode of the TV show Hannibal, and I did not like it at all. Of course, it's only one episode and I will continue it someday but Will Graham (played by Hugh Dancy) was portrayed so annoying and weird. And then Hannibal, played by Mads Mikkelsen, he does not even resemble Hopkins for one bit! The choice for Mads Mikkelsen is just as terrible as choosing Gaspard Ulliel for Lecter. But again, I've only seen one episode and maybe I'm judging it all wrong, I will come back to it eventually when I continue watching it. But until then, this is my opinion about Hannibal.

Red Dragon is a very good movie. Brilliant acting and a good plot. Though it's definitely not as good as Silence of the Lambs, it's still an excellent movie. Absolutely recommendable. It does not even bother if you haven't seen Silence of the Lambs yet since Red Dragon is a prequel, but I must advice that you watch Silence of the Lambs afterwards since it's an amazing movie.

My personal rate: 8/10