He's an insane genius with a predilection for eating human flesh. Don't worry- it's just the return of Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter.

Plot: After a drug bust gone awry, FBI special agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) is back on the trial of Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). He's being hunted by cops all over the world, but none of them have the vengeance in mind that Mason Verger (an unrecognisable Gary Oldman) has. This character is the only one of Lecter's victims to have survived and he wants to dole out some just desserts (he, he!) to the good doctor. To this end, he's recruited a biggie in the FBI (Ray Liotta) who tries to make sure that Starling doesn't catch up with Lecter first. Of course, nothing goes as planned, and a lot of ketchup, oops - blood, gets spilled over the course of the rest of the film.

Poles apart! That's what I felt after watching 'Hannibal', as I compared this Ridley Scott-helmed film to its predecessor, 'The Silence of the Lambs'. What Jonathan Demme did with the first film was nothing short of extraordinary. He took a fairly routine serial killer story, infused it with tons of subtext (Did anyone not feel that Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter were not actually some sort of otherworldly lovers, in a very queasy way?) and created more than just the Grandest Guignol Hollywood had seen in ages. Scott is less ambitious. All he wants is to provide the audience a good ride, which he does. While Demme operated on the principle that less is more, that what the audience imagines is far scarier than what it sees, Scott goes all out with the gore. While the first one was shot in chilling tones of blue, this one is richly saturated in scarlet. As I said, in scope and execution, the two films are poles apart.

Hopkins has a high old time chewing up his victims and the scenery, in that order, but the quiet menace of his first time out as Lecter is not there in this film. He comes off as a benevolent grandfather with a slightly twisted mind. His actions seem naughty indulgences, not some sort of unseemly evil. I haven't read the book, and cannot comment if this transition was part of author Thomas Harris' vision or something done to make the film more 'accessible' (Hey, it made some $58 million in its first three days of worldwide release!), but I was a bit disappointed. As for Moore, she looks like a taller version of Jodie Foster, meaning she brings the same intensity and intelligence to the role, and you don't much care that a new actor has taken over the part.

I said earlier that Scott unleashes the gore, and I'm not kidding. Well, it's not quite stomach churning by our jaded standards (the same Ridley Scott's 'Alien' comes to mind), but you'd do well not to see this on a full stomach. It's still an extremely good-looking movie, though, thanks to stellar contribution from the director's 'Gladiator' cinematographer, John Mathieson. The best segment of the film is when Lecter's trying to evade a cop in Rome. There's some nice, dark humour here as the latter's efforts are consistently foiled. Once the Lecter-Starling cat-and-mouse takes off in the US, the film is on shakier ground, leading to a climax that may well test your endurance for bloody-pulpy special effects on screen. Strangely, the film keeps hinting at Starling's disgrace (due to the foiled drug bust) as something that would take her to darker emotional territory (especially with Lecter), but nothing much is done about this. But there's a terrific segment where she's lured out by the doctor into trying to catch him and he all but skips being right under her nose.

Rating: If you consider the fact that characters in the original appear again, then, yes, 'Hannibal' is a sequel. But it's nothing like 'The Silence of the Lambs', which may actually be why it as entertaining as it is. It works entirely on its own, fairly ridiculous terms. Sometimes, the best way to preserve the memory of a classic is not to try to replicate it.

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