It's hard to figure out how to classify Hannibal genre-wise. Insofar as the film is a sequel to Jonathan Demme's superior ''Silence of the Lambs'' (with Anthony Hopkins again playing evil genius Hannibal Lecter and Julianne Moore picking up the Jodie Foster part of FBI agent Clarice Starling), it's a suspense film. Inasmuch as it features a couple of the grodiest scenes recently viewed at the multiplex, it's horror. But considering director Ridley Scott's eye for opulence and his reduction of the horror film to its absurd essence, it also stands as the classiest gross-out comedy ever made. This is gourmet sadomasochism; the viewer is variously encouraged to identify with Clarice, Hannibal, and a pack of man-eating boars.
Scott uses cold tones and elegant lines as designer flatware on which to serve a feast for the senses -- golden perfumes, silver espresso cups, loamy wines, soaring arias, and the stirring splendors of Hannibal in Florence and Clarice in Gucci. Correctly taking his audience for gluttons, he stuffs us in the sumptuous dining room, then moves us along to the vomitorium.
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