Red Dragon is an interesting movie. It's amusing to watch, and is full of great filmmaking. I do, however, find myself critizing it as much as a praise it. Something I find amusing is that, for the most part, what I expected to be done well, was done poorly, and what I expected to be done poorly was done well.

Overall it is a good film. The cast is full of great actors, and for the most part they all hit their mark. The direction is not without it's charm, and the plot is an excellent one thanks to author Tom Harris.

Ralph Finnes plays a very good Dolarhyde, played different then in Manhunter, the book's first movie adaptation. In Manhunter, when Dolarhyde starts feeling affection for Reba, you can see him afraid. You see he's afraid of hurting her, because of what he is... but at the same time you can see he's even more afraid that he WON'T hurt her... and that she will change what he is. Being the Dragon is more important to him. In this film, it's different. In this film Reba becomes more important, but not by much. This changed the film's ending dramatically, making it much more like the Tom Harris novel. I like both Dolarhydes. I think the Finnes Dolarhyde really gives this film its shine though. Something I was not expecting.

I have to admit I'm a little disappointed with Edward Norton though. No, he wasn't a bad actor... but he wasn't Will Graham. To me, Will was someone who became too much like the killers, when he studied the crime scenes he got himself very involved, put himself in the minds of the criminals... and that is one of the reasons he's so scared to work on the case. Not just because of Lecter. You don't get that from Graham in this film... you just see him as a good detective... and I think that's something of a shame. I felt he had no real emotions with the case other then it would be a shame if someone died.

Hopkins is Lector, but this is not his film. This film is about Will and Dolarhyde. Lector is used (almost always) in a way that suits that story and there are very few instances where he's put in solely because he's Hannibal, and he HAS to be there. For this, I give Tally and Ratner great praise. I cannot say enough how much the deserve praise for not changing the story to suit Lector. In fact, this film has less Lecter then Silence of the Lambs or Hannibal.

Hopkins plays Lector as he played him in Hannibal, but with more anger. But you know, I thought there was too much of the "Hannibal" style Lector in him. Now, that type of Lector fit the movie Hannibal perfectly, but I don't think it did for this movie.

The supporting cast members, Hoffman and Watson are their usual great. Their roles add to the film. Watson is one of the main improvements I can see over the original Manhunter, she plays Reba so well. Keitel, and Parker, however, I did not like. Keitel is totally unlike Scott Glenn, and his character of Crawford... and that's not Keitel's fault. But why couldn't they just have used Scott Glenn or someone who at least acted like him? This isn't like Moore and Foster. Moore emulated Foster perfectly, and within a few scenes you accepted her as Clarice. Keitel is NEVER Crawford. Ever. They should have changed the character before they cast Keitel as Crawford. Parker, well, her part is minor. And it solely fails to me because she had no chemistry with Norton, and I couldn't believe that the two would get along, much less marry.

The direction of this film varied widely. For the first half an hour, before Graham's first visit with Lector, the pacing is absolutely terrible. There's no sense of flow, or time, or anything. Ratner isn't a terrible director in other ways though. He has some good visual styles, and some good to great styles of editing. But overall, he's no great director, and in the hands of another director, I feel this film could have been so much more. He's good, but that's all. One thing I hated though was all the voice-overs and "telling" he did. Show, don't tell. Or if tell, tell in a way that's realistic. In Manhunter, Crawford tells another cop the story of how Lounds took photographs of Graham in hospital. In this film, Graham tells Crawford... who already knows. He just tells to let the audience know, and it's not nearly as effective.

A few other minor things extend from the date the film's set in. It's set in the 80s, and yet we never feel like we're in the 80s. In fact, there are some things about the film that don't fit in the 80s at all. Now, I don't like when a film set in another time period goes overboard, but there could have been some things.

Ted Tally's script is what surprised me the most though, and for so many reasons. First of all, I know I praise the plot, but the plot was excellent because of Tom Harris, not Ted Tally. Ted Tally seems to have lost SOMETHING since he did Silence of the Lambs. This film is missing something Silence of the Lambs had. It's even missing something Hannibal had. There is not one scene in this film that even half lives up to Hannibal and Clarice talking about the spring lambs before he escapes in Silence of the Lambs. There's not one scene that half lives up to Hannibal explaining to Clarice (in not so many words) why he loves her at the end of Hannibal. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are a ton of good scenes, but they just don't do it for me the same way. Will Graham is the man who locked Hannibal up. Put an end to his life... and yet, the two don't have one great scene together. Oh sure, they have great dialogue... but the scenes aren't there.

The film just lacks some of that, for lack of a better word, ART, in the non-Dolarhyde scenes. And the Dolarhyde scenes are great, that the movie's main reason to watch. But I would have loved to see the ones with Hannibal made a lot better. Tally is someone who totally critized the movie Hannibal. He totally hated it, said Hannibal was far too over the top, far too silly and not serious. He calls the movie "Hannibal: The Huggybear" and yet Hannibal is acting just as over the top, and even more silly in this one. The ending scene is very annoying to me. It's in there just because it's a prequel, and what more, it makes little sense, and doesn't fit with the beginning of Silence of the Lambs at all.

The plot of this film is great, but I have to give most credit to Harris. If you don't know the plot to Red Dragon (from either the book or Manhunter) then I think it's very hard to dislike this film, simply because the story is so good.

So, yeah, I do recommend this film. I think it's good, and it's worth seeing. I just wish a few things were a lot different. I don't particularly recommend it over Manhunter, because it does some things way better, and some things way worse. See them both, pick your favorite parts. Enjoy.