The Shrine

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Saw Red Dragon on opening night. Pretty good movie, surprisingly so IMO. I've always liked Hopkins and Norton and I knew Finnes was good, but I thought with Ratner at the helm and it being such a big-name franchise, it would get the complete Hollywood formula treatment. It does, but no completely. It's not excellent like Lambs was, but it also doesn't have any distinct dull parts, like Hannibal did. It's a very safely made film, using a lot of what happened in the prequels to its advantage. They don't bother wasting a lot of time building the character of Hannibal 'cause there's no reason to; we all know who and what he is. And the relationship between the Will and Hannibal is quite similar to that of Clarice and Hannibal, but not quite as intriguing or interesting. That might have to do with the fact that it was all brand new in the first film, but this one uses the relationship as an "intersting twist" to the standard cop-chases-serial-killer storyline than making it the centre of the film itself. Although it tries, the film doesn't quite succeed in making the relationship the focal point of the film. What really hurts the film is the predictible twist at the end. Mind you, they did it well, but still, it should never have happened. I really think it should have ended without that whole twist in there but with the little bit right at the end in there; the one where you just want that damned cameo to be but you get disappointed. That woulda made the movie a bit better, but it was still pretty good in its own right. Finnes was great as the Red Dragon, much better than I thought he would be and the relationship between him and his woman was excellent, the best part of the film. Of course, Norton and Hopkins were their excellent selves as well. It was just short of greatness, but considering how the summer movies were, it was a nice surprise that I wasn't disappointed by it. Not as good as the first and it's a matter of preference whether or not you'll like it more than Hannibal.

So I guess there wasn't any real spoilers. I tried to avoid them</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>...is the the old version focused more on Will's psychological scar. I mean, it's understandable....he got a glimpse of the mind of Hannibal. And it nearly made him insane. The actor was more depressed compared to Ed Norton.

The new version, the focus was more on the Tooth Fairy than with Will. The director was more sympathetic towards his psyche since it revealed his childhood. The Michael Mann(The Manhunter) didn't even mention the Tooth Fairy's childhood abuse.


BTW....for you X-Files fans.....Mulder was molded from the 80's Will. Depressed, too focused and at the brink of fanatical.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Still gotta check out the original one, I hear it's so damned good</div>