Hannibal

Fuller and company do an impressive job of balancing Lecter's machinations, Graham's emotional problems, and the other killers that Graham and Crawford have to stop, in a way that never descends into formula.

Hannibal takes our own fixation on psycho-pop and serves it back to us in a dish full of flavor. Bon appétit, horror freaks.

The show may be titled Hannibal, which for commercial branding purposes makes complete sense, but this is Will's story. And an absorbing, psychologically rich one it is, too--immeasurably smarter than The Following, more haunting than Bates Motel.

The result is a challenging psychological thriller within a gripping crime procedural.

A well constructed, masterfully written piece, Hannibal exceeds the "ick" factor of any crime procedural on the air.

Hannibal is richer and more ambiguous than prior Harris adaptations; it's an exploration of social decay that's rife with literal and figurative cancers eating everyone alive from the ground up.

If you stay, you just may find yourself captivated by a trio of strong performances from Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy and Laurence Fishburne--and entranced by the fevered-dream spell cast by creator Bryan Fuller, the brilliant TV auteur behind Pushing Daisies and Wonderfalls.

Deliciously disturbing, Hannibal is bound to leave viewers hungry for more.

Hannibal is a sturdy offering, one that keeps viewers guessing and tensions simmering. Most TV crime shows have a tendency to quickly fade from memory. This one just might haunt your dreams.

It’s a macabre dance that only promises to get more intense.

The show isn't perfect--the female characters are weak, Graham can get a bit wild-eyed and the killings get progressively more bizarre. But creator Bryan Fuller has a good grip on the material and Mikkelsen sets a tone that's both chilling and intriguing.

By the end of the first hour, it has managed to make Dancy, Fishburne and Mikkelsen a formidable trio of characters, and each actor responds in kind with strong, engaging performances. Another sign of a good series is the fact that beyond the main three, the supporting cast is filled with solid actors and--more important--strong, vivid characters.

Show creator Bryan Fuller, director David Slade, and their writers have created in Hannibal a satisfying, addictive, and truly disturbing work.

If you watch Hannibal, it's likely to stay with you for days. Despite the darkness at the heart of it, that's a good thing this time around.

Hannibal is good. Terrifyingly good.

Hannibal moves at a snail's pace to build tension. At the same time, there's an obvious attempt to counter its inertia with a lot of very intrusive soundtrack music.... Fortunately, Dancy's performance is terrific and more than enough to maintain our interest, with or without elks.

It's anchored by several great performances, and it's among the more distinctive and gorgeously filmed shows on the air right now.... What did turn me off a bit in the first couple episodes of Hannibal was the victims were all young women.

It’s hard to imagine Hannibal scaling new peaks of originality as drama--not with characters and situations that have, in more than one sense, been done to death. At least there’s life in the acting and in the show’s inventive visuals.

Stick with the series through a handful of episodes, though, and it’s clear that showrunner Bryan Fuller has brought a semi-hypnotic quality to this prequel adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter character--ungainly and messy, but at times visually arresting, and thanks in large part to the central trio of Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy and Laurence Fishburne, quite interesting.

The thing that does give this show its grounding is the acting. Dancy is a perfect, tortured soul; Fishburne is everyman with a brain; and Mads Mikkelsen is perfectly named. What is lacking, though, is any respite from the darkness.

No matter how beautifully the dead bodies are staged--and, like Dr. Lecter's dinners, the corpse presentations in Hannibal could be ripped from old issues of Gourmet magazine, if Gourmet had featured cannibalism--they're still meant to represent once-living people. So, if I'm less amused by this than whoever chose to title those episodes "Aperitif," "Amuse-Bouche," "Potage," "Coquilles" and "Entrée," call me a party pooper. Still, it's a gorgeous party, with hosts that include "Wonderfalls" star Caroline Dhavernas as a colleague of Will's and Laurence Fishburne as Will's boss.

Ultimately, Hannibal is a mixed bag. It’s a more complex show than many programs in prime-time but it’s still finding itself in early episodes, particularly with regards to plotting.

Hannibal isn't quite the sum of its admittedly evocative parts. The story is often strained, or like that poor synth operator, overextended; the shocks tend to be operatic--oversold as opposed to a deft sudden jolt to emotional solar plexus.

In seriously exploring what drives people to kill, Hannibal serves up a meal too heavy to enjoy each week.

For a while you can sense Hannibal’s noble urge to stick to a long story arc--why does there have to be a new case every episode?--but eventually it gives in to a proven formula.

The NBC series deteriorates from a graphic but promising first episode to a third hour that basically falls apart from any rational credibility standpoint.

It’s moody and slow and ponderous, elegant as Mikkelsen’s perfectly coiffed hair, except in the winky moments when, say, Hannibal serves Will an egg scramble that must contain body parts and Will unknowingly finds it delicious.

For fans of "Silence of the Lambs" there is some pleasure in gathering the canonical Easter eggs planted throughout the series, but for the most part Hannibal suffers from the same fatal flaw as its main character: It takes itself so seriously that it's no fun at all.

Those who don’t find Hannibal fatally slow and pretentious can stick around to enjoy the superior production values and the stylishness of the pilot, directed by David Slade with an ominous suggestiveness reminiscent of David Fincher.

On just about every other, deeper level--plotting, acting, dialogue--Hannibal is lousy.