The first time I saw Hannibal was when it came out in the theater. The second time was tonight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I bought the box set around 10 years ago, where it's sat on the shelf collecting dust. I bought the Set thinking that one day I'd get around to rewatching it, but that day just kept being pushed off into the next day and then month and then year. Why? Well, I just didn't like it in the theater for a lot of reasons, but I was hopeful that with the passage of time, I could revisit this again and have a different opinion of it.

And did I? Nope. Not even close. If anything, I think it's even worst now, especially having just watched The Silence of the Lambs , which just pointed out the obvious: That Lambs was a once in a life time movie that had everything working for it. I will say that I am a huge fan of Julianne Moore, but in this movie, she couldn't have been more wrong for the part. But I would say that about any actress having the misfortune of trying to replace Jodie Foster.

Her absence here is just too much to overcome and be totally unbiased. You just can't do it. Tonight, every time Moore would open her mouth to say something, all I could do was picture Foster in the role instead. The more I did this, the more I began to realize why Foster passed on returning. The script and the story just did not work. Yeah, I've heard her say that she didn't return because of scheduling conflicts with another movie. I don't buy it. I think she didn't like the story as well and this is exemplified by the dinner scene, which was totally ridiculous and every time I would picture Foster in this movie, it couldn't save itself from a bad script.

Worth a Rent if you have nothing better to do. Stick with the original. One last thing to point out about Hannibal is that it has long stretches where I was beyond bored because there was no tension, unlike the first one, which elevated it to an art form.

I forgot to point out one very interesting thing while watching this tonight. There is a scene where the Police Agent is searching on the FBI most wanted List on the Computer and as he scans the list, the camera tracks over Bin Laden. The movie came out in February. That's bizarre.

Watching it last night, it hit me like a ton of bricks when remembering how bored I was the first time around. Ugh. Jodie Foster was absolutely right to walk away from this because had she done the movie with THIS script, she would have suffered for it. She would have gotten the blame for the final product up on the screen. Sometimes it pays to stick to your guns and walk away.