Nerdly.co.uk: ‘Hannibal’ – Series Premiere (P)review by Nathan Smith

http://www.nerdly.co.uk/2013/03/31/hannibal-series-premiere-preview/

One thing is very clear from the first few minutes of Bryan Fuller’s new series, Hannibal, it’s his own take on the characters invented in the world of literature by Thomas Harris and then essayed on screen in film as The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Hannibal Rising and Manhunter/Red Dragon. He’s not cribbing from source materials to create a pastiche of overly clichéd characters to make a by-the books procedural. No, this is his world and he’s simultaneously managed to create a world that feels like Harris’ and those aforementioned films and yet still makes this his own. It doesn’t feel like his previous works, even the sadly truncated Mockingbird Lane felt like a new Fuller take on an old classic.

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Throughout the pilot, David Slade’s direction is haunting and gothic, and creates exactly the mood required for the series. It’s Dario Argento by way of television procedural. There are scene reminiscent of Kubrick’s The Shining. It’s cracking direction all through and through. The direction during Will’s analysis of the murders or even the dreams he has during the investigation during the pilot feels like an actual dream and creates some definitive chills. It’s not as violent as the other serial killer drama on the air nor as mean spirited and brutal either. The violence services the story instead of vice versa.

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The interplay between Dancy and Mikkelsen is chatty, playful and yet handled as two men playing a dangerous game of chess. Thankfully, both pilot director Slade and Fuller allow Mads Mikkelsen to flesh out the character as his own, rather than how Hopkins played it. Here, Lector is a man using caution to hide himself and doesn’t allow for himself to show through whatever façade he has. It’s such beautiful restraint.

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The performance of Hugh Dancy as Will Graham is a damn fine breakout.

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Hannibal is one of the strongest pilots this year, and has the ability to be the breakout hit that Bryan Fuller damn well deserves. It’s so very compelling and offers a new slant on a story everyone knows, and yet breathes some new life into it, and a genre of television as old as time.