Red Dragon
(HD-DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: B- Film: B-
There is
always a problem remaking classics that is even worse that remaking a bad film
or a tired TV series. In many ways,
Michael Mann’s Manhunter can be seen
as a genre classic and going beyond genre in its story of a police officer and
how his pursuit of a deadly serial killer starts to get into his psyche. The film allowed the line between good and
evil to disintegrate between the killer and cop, but not in some silly Political
Correctness formula. It was the first
Hannibal Lecter film and a long term favorite.
However, producer Dino DeLaurentiis was not as happy and with the
commercial success of both Silence Of
The Lambs and Ridley Scott’s Hannibal,
the latter of the two of which he produced, he could not resist remaking Manhunter. Unfortunately, he hired Brett Ratner and the
result was Red Dragon, a muddled
2002 film that was a big cash in that did not work, was not a big hit and few
even talk about.
Two major
changes were made. One, Lecter would
have a much larger role for no good reason, because of the success of the
previous films. Of course, he was more
incidental in the book and Mann film.
Also, a childish, silly reestablishing of blind faith and “authority”
with the police department and the investigative figure would be artificially
pumped up to the point of silliness reestablishing a false line between the cop
and killer. The Ted Tally screenplay
adaptation may have even been more faithful to the book, but what he adds was
gone in the first place because it just did not work cinematically.
The film
opens with a younger Lecter (Anthony Hopkins playing the character for the
third and likely last time) being visited by Will Graham (Edward Norton, who is
good, but no match for William Petersen in the original) in the scene of how
Will is almost killed while capturing Lecter.
We did not necessarily need to see this, but it is not bad. Then the serial killer dubbed “The Tooth
Fairy” is on the loose (Ralph Fiennes in the Tom Noonan role, trying to recover
from desecrating the John Steed role in The
Avengers film and not as good) and Graham has to eventually consult Lecter
of all people to get help.
Hopkins
is good as Lecter, but the film allows us to see the differences between how he
did the role versus originator Brian Cox in the Mann film and Cox was just as
strong in his more slowly sinister approach.
However, Ratner is way out of his depth and even Harvey Keitel as the
third Jack Crawford (following Dennis Farina and Scott Glenn) does not work,
especially when he is such a “solid friend” in a juvenile way even Keitel’s
talents cannot overcome. Emily Watson is
even less sympathetic in the Joan Allen role of the blind woman who gets to
know the killer without knowing it.
As a
result, the film cuts down the depth, cinematic space, intelligence, maturity,
risk, boldness, hearty and soul of Mann’s version and has all kinds of clumsy
mistakes. The most glaring is the
recreation of the dungeon when Lecter is kept, totally rebuilt for this film
(going to Pittsburgh must have been more expensive that building the set, I
guess) made famous by Silence Of The
Lambs. Though ace Production
Designer Kristi Zea went through great lengths to recreate the look,
architecture and minute details of the original setup, she made one glaring
error very noticeable on the 35mm film prints and definitely something you can
see here on the HD-DVD the standard DVD does not reveal. She forgot the dirt!
Yes,
whereas in Silence Of The Lambs the
underground prison has dirt, dust and age from existing for decades adding up
to something like a century’s time, this one is far too clean and clear to be
believed. Typical Ratner, I guess we are
to believe they added all this dirt before Clarice arrived for her first
meeting with Lecter for the next film?
This makes it the cleanest underground dungeon-like prison in cinema
history!
However,
it is history that this film could care less about. It is a mess and only some of the actors and
the interesting original source material (as mutilated as it is) keep this
interesting in any way. It is just a big
mistake, like the train wreck you cannot turn away from watching. Word has it that Ratner was obnoxious on the
set and did not know what he was doing. We cannot confirm this, but the resulting film
is evidence of he did not know what he was doing and is just a flat dud. See Manhunter
first if you never saw either.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is shot by Dante Spinotti, A.S.C., A.I.C.,
who had shot the far superior Manhunter
for Mann in the same aspect ratio.
Ironically, this is shot in actual anamorphic Panavision, while that was
shot in the then-new Super 35mm format.
Mann’s version looks better, fuller and was shot to be so big, that 70mm
blow-ups were made. The shots here are
often too close, not always as atmospheric or as expansive as the Mann film,
though the transfer is better than the regular DVD. However, there is not too much to improve on. The editing is not as good either, in part,
because of the noted narrative issues.
The Dolby
Digital Plus 5.1 mix is better than the regular Dolby 5.1 on the DVD, but the
sound design is no match in sonics to Scott’s Hannibal or in character to either Manhunter or Silence Of The
Lambs. To make things worse, Danny
Elfman of all people supplies the music that only further whittles down and
hampers the story. This was not DTS on
DVD or here, and once you hear this upgraded version, you’ll see why it just
does not make a difference in this case.
Extras are (too?) many and include an awkward commentary by Ratner and
Tally, screen tests, make-up application, storyboards section, additional
scenes that would not have helped, five featurettes, an untitled Ratner student
film and Elfman talking about his score.
The
better films based on Robert Harris’ work can be found at these links in their
best standard DVD versions. They cannot
come out in High Definition fast enough:
Hannibal (2001 DTS Set)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/193/Hannibal+(2001/DTS+set)
Manhunter (DiviMax Edition)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/218/Manhunter+(Divimax+Ed.)
The Silence Of The Lambs (MGM vs. Out-Of-Print Criterion)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/190/Silence+of+the+Lambs+(MGM+Widescreen+++Criterion)
- Nicholas Sheffo
