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I won't bore you with too much of a plot recap, because if you're reading this you probably already know it anyway. All that matters is that after a zippy prologue, Lecter is back in his cage, acting all creepy and talking about eating an old friend for dinner with a nice Chianti. This time, FBI guy Will Graham (Edward Norton) is lured out of semi-retirement to track down a new serial killer, "The Tooth Fairy" (Ralph Fiennes). But Graham is burnt out and just a family man at heart, or maybe he's just smart - would you want to hang out with Hannibal Lecter any more than you had to? But Mr. Fairy is keeping himself pretty busy, and Graham just can't say no. What do you think is gonna happen?

My problem with Red Dragon isn't so much what it is as what it has become post- Silence. In hindsight, Red Dragon feels like a rough draft version of Lambs. Harris' own sequel was tighter, had better developed characters and a clearer sense of purpose. Red Dragon has the same basic setup - do-gooder FBI agent uses Lecter to track down a killer - but isn't as emotionally satisfying nor very much fun. It's appropriately dark and grim, but the Clarice-Lecter relationship added a whole new dimension to the quick pro quo, which Dragon lacks. Ted Tally returns to the Lecter fold with Oscar in tow, and the biggest compliment I can pay him is that his literate if by-the-numbers script certainly attracted a topflight cast despite the presence of Brett "Please god don't make any more Rush Hour movies" Ratner in the director's chair.

The cast is game, but they still can't quite save Red Dragon from feeling like old news. Will Graham, as played by Norton, is a likable guy, but his story feels cliched. Lecter also rates as a mere side player and not truly integral to the action. Anthony Hopkins is Hannibal, but why does it seem more and more like he's doing dinner theater? So it is up to Fiennes, all icy menace as Norman Bates-with-tattoos, to provide the majority of the psycho-on- the-loose moments, and he's right back where he belongs, playing nutcases. (Whenever I see those Maid in Manhattan trailers, all I can think about is Fiennes showing off his full-body tattoos to a startled J.Lo, then tying her to a wheelchair, lighting her on fire and pushing her into oncoming traffic.) The supporting cast is also excellent, especially Emily Watson as a blind girl who fetches Fiennes' attention, and look for a clever voice cameo by Ellen Burystn.

Despite such A-list talent, Red Dragon can't help but feel like too little, too late. It is certainly an above-average thriller if taken on its own terms, and there is really nothing wrong with it. But if you've already seen The Silence of the Lambs (and who hasn't?) it will feel awfully familiar. At least it's better than the dreadful Hannibal, but I bet after watching a double feature of Red Dragon and Lambs, even Lecter would have a bad case of indigestion. Me, I'm going to go rent Silence again and have an old friend for dinner...

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Breaking away from the 1.85;1 tradition set by The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, Brett Ratner chose to shoot Red Dragon in true 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, so this flick would end up being the odd guy out on a triple bill. But it certainly looks great, and Universal provides an excellent anamorphic widescreen transfer as proof. This is as good as a DVD gets, with a near-perfect presentation that should do any home theater proud. Everything about this transfer is first rate - pristine print, beautiful color reproduction and excellent blacks. Detail is often exquisite, with even shadow delineation revealing fine textures and shading. The film is often dark and Ratner and his director of photography Dante Spinotti employ some harsh filters to give the film mood, but the image always appears smooth and sharp regardless. While the disc is a bit overstuffed - both the single-disc edition and two- disc Director's Edition feature the same configurations on the first platter - I was surprised by the lack of major compression artifacts nor any noticeable edge enhancement. Tasty!

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Just as impressive as the transfer, the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track included here is so good it's...scary! I remember seeing this in the theater, and being impressive with what an aggressive, consistently engaged sonic experience it was throughout. Red Dragon at home is no different. Dynamic range is excellent, especially with Danny Elfman's score, which utilizes instruments across the entire range, from deep bass to lots of airy ambient effects. While the film isn't really full of action, the surrounds are almost constantly engaged, even for subtle discrete effects which are quite effective. The film also uses lots cheap shock stingers to make us jump (it works, even if it feels like cheating), but despite these loud blasts of score, the mix is perfectly balanced and no dialogue is lost amid the din. Great stuff.

Also included is a French 5.1 Dolby surround track, English captions encoded as subtitles, and French and Spanish subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Although MGM distributed the film theatrically, Universal Studios Home Video gets to handle DVD chores, and are releasing Red Dragon in three versions: separate widescreen and pan & scan single-disc editions, and a two-disc Director's Edition in widescreen only. The first disc and its configuration of the extras is the same on all versions, so let's start there. (Note that all the video-based extras are presented in full screen and 2.0 stereo, with no optional subtitles or Closed Captions provided.)

First up we have a screen-specific audio commentary with director Brett Ratner and screenwriter Ted Tally. Ratner is a rather hyperkinetic, likable fellow, and certainly has a great deal of enthusiasm for this project, his first real A-ticket directorial effort. I'm not sure if I could have taken a whole two hours with his fast-talking style, so luckily we have Tally to tone things down. Both together deliver quite a fine commentary. There were obviously a lot of expectations riding on this one, and who would want to follow up directors like Jonathan Demme, Ridley Scott and Michael Mann, especially on a prequel few were really clamoring for? Apparently Ratner did, and he seems unfazed by the criticisms leveled at the film and it's not-quite-blockbuster box office. But like the best commentaries, I did get a new appreciation for the film, and certainly the craft that went into it. The talk of the casting and Tally's decisions in adapting Harris' often lengthy prose were the most intriguing, and I think even casual fans would enjoy giving this one a listen.

There is also a second audio commentary slash isolated score on the disc, although it's not labeled anywhere on the packaging and I almost missed it on the setup menu. Composer Danny Elfman provides about 20-odd minutes of commentary stuck in-between gaps in the soundtrack. He's a fun guy and offers some interesting insight on how he worked extra-hard to make sure Red Dragon formed a cohesive trilogy with the other two Hopkins pics, but also stood on its own as a unique piece of work. The isolated score is presented in 5.1 surround, and sounds great. A nice, albeit hard to find, addition.

Next we have no less than 15 additional scenes. Half are full standalone scenes, the other 8 alternate or extended versions of existing sequences. There's some good character bits here that fans of the book will recognize, especially between Norton, Parker and Keitel and Fiennes and Watson, but no real showy setpieces, nor any lost Lecter ghoulishness. All are presented in non-anamorphic widescreen and include optional commentary with Ratner and Tally.

The rest of disc one has some pretty fluffy EPK-style featurettes: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer (8 minutes) introduces to FBI profiler John Douglas, who fans should remember from his work on The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal as well; Hannibal Lecter and Me (4 minutes) is a way-too-short interview with Anthony Hopkins; and The Making of Red Dragon (14 minutes) is your prototypical making-of, with on-the-set interviews and breathless narration. Fine, but it can't compare to the real making of stuff on disc two of the Director's Edition.

Rounding out the supplements on disc one are Lecter's FBI File and Life History, a series of text screens on Lecter's make- believe FBI history (kinda fun), standard production notes and cast and crew filmographies. All the trailers are included on disc two of the Director's Edition only.

Now, here's what separates the boys from the boy-men who love their mommies and stab people. Yep, that's right, it's another whole disc of gory serial killer fun. While only true fans of the Hannibal Lecter saga will probably want to pick this up, in a way it's a shame, because this is a pretty cool attempt to create a real DVD diary on the making of a film. A Director's Journey: The Making of Red Dragon is at long last the kind of real documentary true fans want, not that stupid HBO fluff stuff. (Okay, those HBO pieces are fine, but just extended commercials for the movie.) This thing clocks in at 39 minutes (I would have enjoyed it just as much if it was 139 minutes) and we get to track Ratner as he goes through most of the stages of film production, although it feels a bit truncated when it comes to post- shoot: development, scouting locations, fighting with Dino, casting, shooting, fighting with Dino some more, and even so unconcerned with the safety of his actors that it looks like they could have burned to death and he would have tried to CGI their faces in. Those who hate Brett Ratner (which seems to be everyone I went to film school with) will love this. He is frequently seen "discussing" major decisions with everybody, and kudos to the guy for leaving this stuff in. I wouldn't say it is on the level of Hearts of Darkness or even "The Beginning..." on the Star Wars Episode I DVD, but it sure is way better than most crappy making-ofs these days.

The remaining supplements here are pretty good, even if they can't quite live up to the video diary. We get five more featurettes: Visual Effects (4 minutes) is a before-and-after montage of a few scenes that used CGI, and cut back and forth as each effect's "plates" are built up; Film Tests (11 minutes) is the best of the bunch, offering a guided tour of Ralph Fiennes going through his Tooth Fairy paces, including being outfitted with his blood and tattoos; Leed's House Crime Scene (4 minutes) gives us a tour of the location with technical advisor Lt. Ray Peavy; and the virtual snippet Makeup Application (a mere 1 minute), which shows us how they got those pieces of glass in the actor's eyes. Ick. And then there is Burning Wheelchair (3 minutes), which I found really funny because I'm a sick fuck. (Guess I still can't get J.Lo out of my mind.) The cool thing about these vignettes is that various participants, including Ratner, director of photography Dante Spinotti and makeup artist Matthew Mungle offer narration to guide us through what we are seeing. Nicely done.

Rounding out the extras are nice Storyboard-to-Screen comparisons for three scenes, plus the film's original theatrical and teaser trailers in non-anamorphic widescreen. Last and certainly least is the shameless inclusion of Brett Ratner's Untitled Student Film. I saw this once when I was at school (it is still a big joke around town - "They let this guy direct a movie!?") and I never want to see it again. Run, don't walk, away from this one.

DVD- ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

Pop the disc in the drive and a Universal Total Axess interface pops up. Embedded with basic DVD controls, the big attraction is the upcoming launch of the Red Dragon Total Axess web portal, set to launch when the disc streets on April 1st. Watch this space for an update...

Parting Thoughts