Red Dragon

Note: the screenshots featured here are taken from the standard definition DVD release of the film and should not be considered in any way representative of the actual quality of the HD DVD's transfer.

Three years after retiring from the FBI, following a near-fatal encounter with a ruthless killer, Will Graham (Edward Norton) is contacted by his former boss, Jack Crawford (Harvey Keitel), to lend his considerable knowledge to tracking down a serial killer nicknamed the Tooth Fairy (Ralph Fiennes), who has already slaughtered two families and is expected to kill again. As time passes and he draws no closer to tracking down the Tooth Fairy, Graham realises that he will have to call on the assistance of one of the greatest minds ever to have worked alongside him: the very man who came close to killing him all these years ago, the brilliant but deadly Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins)...

If Michael Mann's Manhunter introduced moviegoers the world over to Hannibal Lecter, it was Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs that firmly cemented him as an intrinsic element of 1990s popular culture. Created by reclusive novelist Thomas Harris as a composite of several notorious American serial killers, this sharp-tongued cannibal, ruthless yet beguiling, wormed his way into the psyche of a culture increasingly developing a morbid fascination with serial murder, and, thanks to Demme's film, the masses finally had a face to put to a name: that of Anthony Hopkins, who bagged himself an Oscar for the role. Debates, of course, continue to rage as to whether Hopkins was a better Lecter than the first actor to play him, Manhunter's Brian Cox, but it's fair to say that it was Hopkins's performance that made the character an icon.


The linking of Hopkins to Lecter seems to have been the primary motivation (after good old-fashioned capitalist greed, of course) in remaking Manhunter - if indeed remake it can be called, as the readaptation of existing source material is always something of a grey area. This is certainly the case with Red Dragon, which goes back to Harris's novel of the same name and uses it as its primary source, despiting cribbing a number of scenes from Mann's film. In many respects, an attempt seems to have been made with Red Dragon to create a more "official" adaptation of this first instalment in Harris's trilogy, providing some form of continuity, through Hopkins's portrayal of Lecter, with this, Silence and Ridley Scott's maligned but marvellous Hannibal.

Coming hot on the heels of the offerings of Michael Mann, Jonathan Demme and Ridley Scott, Red Dragon certainly had a daunting pedigree to live up to, and indeed one has to wonder why producer Dino De Laurentiis selected Brett Ratner to helm it. Best known as the director of the Rush Hour films, Ratner hardly seemed like the obvious choice to handle a gritty thriller about a sadistic serial killer (although the less said about De Laurentiis's original choice, Michael Bay, the better), and indeed it is arguably the image of a no-account hack, practically fresh out of film school, remaking what is considered by many to be one of cinema's all-time greats, that resulted in such a backlash against this film. It's a shame, therefore, that a number of people are unwilling to even give it a chance, for, while certainly not on the same level as either Silence or Hannibal, Red Dragon is by no means a train wreck.


Even Ratner's direction is not as bad as been made out. It's admittedly merely functional, lacking the tactile nature of Jonathan Demme's work on Silence or the spendour of Ridley Scott's Hannibal, but the production values are superb and he is backed up by a stellar crew, among them Silence's designer, Kristi Zea, and Manhunter's cinematographer, Dante Spinotti (the latter being a bizarre example of continuity between this film and the previous adaptation). The end result is highly polished, and the world feels real and lived-in, particularly Dolarhyde's house - a real tour de force of set design - but there's nothing remotely imaginative about the camerawork, pacing or editing. It all just sort of, well, happens.

These shortcomings could easily have been explained by a lack of enthusiasm, but at least as far as Ratner is concerned, this is clearly not the case. The supplementary material presents him as an extremely enthusiastic individual, if somewhat inexperienced. At the end of the day, he simply does not appear to have been the right man for the job, and if indeed there was any point in remaking Manhunter, such a project would have been far better handled by someone with some degree of artistic vision. Ratner has made a gigantic leap in going from the director of the lightweight Rush Hour series to helming weighty material such as this, and has proven himself to be a competent artisan. As an artist, however, he leaves a lot to be desired.

What really hurts, though, is the use of Lecter. Here, the once-feared cannibal has been reduced to a parody of his former self, a comedy figure who is wheeled out to deliver some witty one-liners and snide put-downs. The writing of these scenes is, for all intents and purposes, decent, and even Hopkins' performance is fine, but the self-conscious, crowd-pleasing nature of his portrayal, which worked so well in Hannibal, is decidedly out of place here, where he is most assuredly not the star of the show. His role was considerably expanded by Tally from Harris' original novel, and he gets top billing, despite the fact that his screen time still amounts to little more than a glorified extended cameo. It's unavoidable, perhaps, that Lecter has become a lovable rogue over the years in much the same manner as Freddy Krueger, but I'm still amazed at how little genuine malice with which he is infused here. It doesn't help matters that the dungeon set, an extremely faithful reproduction of the original in Silence, only serves to remind the audience of Hopkins' brilliantly rich interaction with Jodie Foster in that film, making his conversations with the hopelessly bland Norton seem positively banal by comparison. The casting of Harvey Keitel as Crawford, meanwhile, in the place of Silence's Scott Glenn (who, in fairness to those involved, turned down the chance to reprise the character), pretty much scuppers the makers' attempts at continuity, although the appearances of Anthony Heald as the loathsome Dr. Chilton, and Frankie Faison as the orderly, Barney, are definitely appreciated.


These criticisms perhaps make the film sound poorer than it is, for it is in fact a very good thriller. De Laurentiis scored a major coup in convincing Silence's screenwriter, Ted Tally, to pen this effort, and he turns in an intelligent, layered script in which the cops are smart and actually work things out logically, instead of happening to fall on the solution by chance. It is also very strong thematically, doubling the characters of Graham and Lecter in a variety of interesting ways (witness the intriguing cutting between them each carrying out their own form of investigation, as Graham tracks down the William Blake painting from which the film and novel take their name, while Lecter does a bit of detective work of his own in obtaining Graham's home address), while at the same time developing Dolarhyde as a believable villain. One could make comparisons between this script and that of Silence for all eternity, and I strongly doubt that anyone would be able to make a case for Red Dragon being the better of the two - after all, it offers nothing as powerful and complex as the discussions between Lecter and Starling in the earlier film - but, taken in its own right, it's a slick, imaginative piece of work that doesn't cheat the audience.

Fans of Manhunter will continue to debunk Red Dragon as a lifeless remake, but in reality it is far from the disaster that many have made it out to be. It is ultimately a worthy attempt to serve up an adaptation of the first chapter in the Lecter trilogy while providing a level of intertextual continuity not offered by Mann's film. The end result is not a masterpiece on the same level as The Silence of the Lambs or Hannibal, but to be honest it was never going to be, and the final product - a smart, competent thriller featuring a highly qualified cast and slick production values - is as good a result as anyone could have reasonably expected.


HD DVD Presentation

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1, this 1080p, VC1-encoded transfer is, in all but one area, excellent. Red Dragon on DVD was always one of the better-looking standard definition releases I'd seen, but the HD DVD naturally takes it to a whole new level. Sharpness is almost always exemplary, except in areas in which the shot itself seemed to have been defocused. A lot of this film takes place in darkness, and the shadows are magnificently deep, with excellent contrast across the board. Colour reproduction is fabulous too, and little things like the red lettering in the opening credits, which were rather smudged and diffuse on the DVD (due to the low resolution of 720x480 being further reduced for primary colours due to MPEG2's half resolution colour storage - a problem which still exists in the new formats like VC1 and H.264, but which is offset by the much higher source resolution of 1920x1080), are smooth and crisp here. There are also no compression artefacts visible, while the grain is handled very well. Red Dragon was shot in anamorphic Panavision and, as such, has an inherently finer grain density than Super35 films like Serenity and The Bourne Supremacy. On certain occasions, however, the grain does become more pronounced, such as when Graham is investigating the Leeds' bedroom at around the 18 minute mark, and it is handled very well. On a related note, it should be pointed out that this, like Tomb Raider and Sleepy Hollow, comes from a film element rather than a digital intermediate, and as such it looks a little more "film-like" than DI-sourced material like Constantine and Unleashed, exhibiting a very slight telecine "wobble" and a smattering of film artefacts (which I have no problem with at all, as this is how it was meant to look).

The downside is something that I haven't seen in any Universal HD DVD releases until now, and that is edge enhancement - and it is at times rather pronounced. As with the Warner titles I've seen, Million Dollar Baby and Constantine, both of which have been edge enhanced, it's quite high frequency, so the halos are fairly thin and only tend to affect highly contrasted edges. Unfortunately, due to the visual style of the film, these crop up quite often, such as the opening credits sequence, in which the camera crawls over pages of typed lettering and handwriting. The edge enhancement seems to be almost entirely horizontal, so while you won't see any ringing at the top and bottom of objects, it can be quite pronounced at the sides.

Once again, though, I must impress on you that this is, in every other respect, a top-drawer transfer. It's a shame to see Universal sullying their track record with the use of edge enhancement, which makes this the weakest of their HD DVDs that I've seen so far, but it's still very much a mid to high 8/10, and compares very favourably to anything I've seen from either Warner or Paramount.


The audio, meanwhile, is 1.5 Mbps Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1, featuring the original English track, as well as Spanish and French dubs. It's a good mix without being exemplary. Clarity is spot-on, with the dialogue consistently coming across as intelligible, while Danny Elfman's score is powerful - a little too powerful at times. For a thriller, and one that relies quite heavily on atmosphere at that, the audio is surprisingly front-focused, with very little in the way of prominent rear channel action, which is a shame, because it makes the film a little less enveloping than it might otherwise have been. Indeed, the surrounds are completely silent for extended stretches of time, to the extent that at times I wondered initially wondered if my rear speakers had cut out. They are at their most prominent when the iconic metal doors open and close when Graham first enters the Dungeon, and during the flame-soaked climax at the Dolarhyde mansion. Generally speaking, the audio is comparable to that of the standard definition release, with a slight increase in overall clarity due to the improved bit rate. It certainly doesn't impact on the film in a particularly meaningful way, though.

Optional English, Spanish and French subtitles are provided for the film itself and most of the extras, with only the commentaries (on the film and varied deleted supplements) going untranscribed.

The menu system is in the same generic style used for Unleashed: just the Universal logo with a menu pane down the left-hand side and score from the film playing in the background. It would seem that Universal has abandoned its short-lived habit of playing a montage of footage behind the menu (see Serenity and The Bourne Supremacy).


Extras

First on offer are two audio commentaries, one featuring director Brett Ratner and screenwriter Ted Tally, and the other an isolated score with brief interjections from composer Danny Elfman. Of the two, the former is undoubtedly the better, with the hyper-active, fast-talking Ratner and the comparatively placid Tally making an effective double turn, and Ratner especially proving to be infectious in his enthusiasm. He also has a pleasingly self-deprecating view of himself, at one point joking that the fact that the script was sent to him must mean that it was so good no-one could mess it up. Unsurprisingly, though, it's Tally's contributions that are the most interesting, especially with regard to his discussions of the various drafts of the script, and the comparisons he makes between this and The Silence of the Lambs. The stereo isolated score, meanwhile, is a nice enough showcase of Elfman's music, although the unavoidably more sporadic nature of his comments makes this a less appealing way to watch the film. His comments, however, while not particularly numerous, should certainly be of interest to the musically-inclined, as he identifies his use of various themes throughout the duration of the score, and how they relate to the characters themselves, in doing so making some intriguing observations about Dolarhyde and his relationships with the dragon and his grandmother.

The materials which follow are a little more generic in nature. Several screens of text comprising Lecter's FBI file and life history are included, which provide an overview of Lecter's exploits prior to his capture, while a variety of deleted, extended and alternate scenes are provided with optional commentary by Ratner, Tally and editor Mark Helfrich. FBI profiler John Douglas, who served as a consultant on both this and The Silence of the Lambs, takes us Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer in an 8-minute featurette, which provides a fairly perfunctory overview of what his job entails and his experiences with interviewing serial killers; those interested in hearing him go into more depth would be well advised to seek out the Criterion edition of The Silence of the Lambs. The theme continues with Anthony Hopkins: Lecter and Me, a 4-minute interview with the actor, who really has nothing of note to say. Finally, The making of Red Dragon is your standard 14-minute EPK peace, replete with gushing appraisals from cast and crew, bombastic voice-over, and copious amounts of footage from the film.

That's it as far as the extras ported from the single-disc standard definition release are concerned, but luckily Universal have also chosen to include most of the contents of the second disc included in the Director's Edition release. The key feature here is A Director's Journey - the making of Red Dragon, a 40-minute fly on the wall documentary going charting everything from the pre-production process to the film's premiere. The piece is aptly named, as Ratner is the focus of the bulk of its duration, showing both the good and the bad. In the case of the former, his unwavering enthusiasm leaves no doubt as to how seriously he takes his work, but on more than a few occasions he comes across as remarkably naive, clearly failing to understand the danger in which his stars would be placed if a difficult stunt were to be executed in the way he wants, while the less said about his (presumably unsuccessful) attempt to get Michael Mann to cameo as a taxi driver, the better. Likewise, the rumours regarding his insistence on filming so many takes of each scene that the performers simply become fed up seem to be well-founded, as evinced by the numerous "That was perfect - let's do it again" moments.

Ratner's untitled student film, presented with no audio, is also included, the less said about which the better, while a 4-minute Visual effects montage gives an idea of the areas in which CGI and digital manipulation were used to touch up various shots. Meanwhile, an 11-minue montage of Screen tests, provided with commentary by Ratner, cinematographer Dante Spinotti and makeup effects artist Matthew Mungle, provides insight into the extensive process of trying out various costume, hair and makeup combinations, as well as a variety of different film stocks. Ratner and Mungle return to narrate 46 seconds' worth of footage showing the application of the makeup effects required for one of the gorier crime scenes. Separate featurettes of around four minutes each also provide a look at behind the scenes work on the burning wheelchair sequence and the Leeds crime scene respectively. 8 minutes' worth of storyboards to final feature comparisons complete the package.

As usual, all of the extras, barring of course the feature commentaries, are presented in standard definition 480i with Dolby Digital-Plus 2.0 audio. Regrettably, Universal have neglected to port over the theatrical and teaser trailers included on the standard definition release, although, given the sheer quantity of material on offer overall, this is far from the end of the world.


Overall

Those who already own the Director's Edition DVD of Red Dragon aren't going to find anything new with this HD DVD release, beyond the obvious improvements to image quality and the slightly more defined audio. Still, HD-enabled enthusiasts who enjoy this fourth, and in my opinion underrated, entry in the Hannibal Lecter series will no doubt be eager to retire their murky standard definition copies and pick up this flawed but undeniably impressive crystal clear upgrade.

About My Equipment:

The HD DVD reviewed here was played on a Toshiba HD-A1 player outputting the video in 1080i mode. Two displays were tested: a 1366x768 Sony BRAVIA KDL-32V2000 32" LCD TV connected via HDMI, and a 1680x1050 Sony MFM-HT205 20" LCD monitor connected via component. Audio was output to a Creative Labs Inspire 5700 5.1 audio setup with an onboard Dolby Digital/DTS decoder.