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The Story: Dr. Hannibal Lecter returns to the United States after a comfortable ten-year vacation, only to find himself running from an "old pal" at the FBI and quite a handsome former patient.

It's refreshing to hear and see Barney (Frankie Faison) as this film begins. Barney stood guard outside of Lecter's cell for years and is now in the business of selling Lecter "collectables" to Mason Verger (Gary Oldman), a former patient and the only surviving victim of Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). We see Verger's horrific face early on in the film and learn that Lecter was a large part of its deformity. While high on amyls, Lecter asked Verger to peel his face off with a piece of broken mirror and feed it to his dogs. Verger followed through and Lecter even gave him a hand.

We cut to Special Agent Clarice Starling (Jullianne Moore), who achieved celebrity fame for her involvement with the Lecter case ten years ago. We get to see her in action as she and her colleagues take down an HIV-positive drug queen who uses a baby and her disease as protection. An intense shoot-out quickly unfolds and Starling is forced to make a decision. Does she let this drug queen kill her or does she risk shooting an innocent child to save her own life? Starling chooses her life, a choice for which she could pay with her job and her reputation. She is later suspended from her position at the FBI for her unorthodox involvement in the Lecter case. Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta) at the Justice Department orchestrates much of Starling's dismissal in a twist surprisingly involving Verger.

Meanwhile, Lecter is living as the sophisticated Dr. Fell somewhere in Florence. Inspector Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) knows who Dr. Fell really is and attempts to capture him for the large reward that is being offered for his arrest. Pazzi's methods soon place him face to face with Lecter, who is "giving very serious thought to eating his wife." Lecter kills Pazzi in quite a symbolic fashion and then returns to the United States, ready to come out of "hibernation." Krendler and Starling find themselves guests at the same formal dinner, hosted by none other than the good doctor himself. Will they survive the main course? Do yourself a favor and find out.

Director Ridley Scott gives us some of the most beautiful and disgusting scenes I've ever had the privilege of watching. The prominent opera in the film was composed specifically for this film and its melody will haunt you days later. On the flipside, we see wild boars devour human beings and we watch a man's bowels fall out of his body as he is hanged. Fans of gore, start your engines!

I have to admit, I was very skeptical that Julianne Moore could pull off the role of Starling as brilliantly as Foster did in The Silence of the Lambs. I had no need to be skeptical as Moore not only pulls it off, but pulls it off well. Her emotions are off the charts and her relationship with Lecter reflects the history that Foster originally created. Hopkins, now a little balder and pudgier, comes through in reprising his role. As a fan of The Silence of the Lambs, I was very pleased to see Lecter out of his cell and back in the action in which we were not able to see him previously. Liotta plays the misogynistic bureaucrat and does so very convincingly. The scene in which he loses his head, so to speak, is particularly memorable.

The tongue-in-cheek jokes are just enough and never too much. You can't help but smile a little when Lecter recalls having "enjoyed many excellent meals" in the states. Extremely creepy are the scenes with Oldman, whose portrayal of the severely deformed and now deranged Verger is magnificent. We sympathize with the cruel ways in which his character seeks revenge on Lecter every time we are forced to look at his hideous face and hear his slurred speech. So, what's wrong with Hannibal? While I would have enjoyed seeing more attention given to Verger's strange little assistant, Cordell (Zeljko Ivanek), I can't say much in the way of negative about Hannibal as a film.

Although the first part of the film moves a little slow as we are forced to see and hear flashbacks from The Silence of the Lambs, I can appreciate the reasoning behind such flashbacks. We must remember the relationship between Starling and Lecter in order to appreciate a reprisal of such history in the later scenes. True, it's not The Silence of the Lambs, but it's a brilliant follow-up with excellent direction, terrific sound, and superior acting.