SummaryFBI head of Behavioral Sciences Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) brings together FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) to help solve cases.
SummaryFBI head of Behavioral Sciences Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) brings together FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) to help solve cases.
Hannibal moves at a snail's pace to build tension. At the same time, there's an obvious attempt to counter its inertia with a lot of very intrusive soundtrack music.... Fortunately, Dancy's performance is terrific and more than enough to maintain our interest, with or without elks.
No matter how beautifully the dead bodies are staged--and, like Dr. Lecter's dinners, the corpse presentations in Hannibal could be ripped from old issues of Gourmet magazine, if Gourmet had featured cannibalism--they're still meant to represent once-living people. So, if I'm less amused by this than whoever chose to title those episodes "Aperitif," "Amuse-Bouche," "Potage," "Coquilles" and "Entrée," call me a party pooper. Still, it's a gorgeous party, with hosts that include "Wonderfalls" star Caroline Dhavernas as a colleague of Will's and Laurence Fishburne as Will's boss.
The NBC series deteriorates from a graphic but promising first episode to a third hour that basically falls apart from any rational credibility standpoint.