Moviegoing audiences get their first peek at Hannibal Lecter in this underachieving early adaptation of Thomas Harris's first novel, Red Dragon. Brian Cox is first in line to tackle Lecter, but seems misdirected. He comes off as just some guy in a cell, not the overwhelming, absurdly intimidating presence he is in the book or, later, in the expert hands of Anthony Hopkins or Mads Mikkelsen.

That's not the only bit of directorial blunder. In fact, given the amount of star power involved in the film and the gripping power of the source material, it's a major surprise that it's all so blunt, dull and empty. William Peterson (of later CSI fame) leads the show as Will Graham - bland, erratic and prone to nearly-comical mood swings - with a similarly underwhelming effort from character actor Dennis Farina as his supervisor, Jack Crawford.

And it's not like the director is some hack. Michael Mann is typically very good behind the camera, but in this case he's just completely missed the mark. There's no underlying tension to the proceedings, none of the complicated character arcs that made the original tale so engrossing. Francis Dollarhyde, the fascinating maniac behind the string of murders driving it all, is cut off at the knees thanks to a criminal lack of exploration. His famous full-torso tattoo is left glaringly off-screen, the false teeth that become his trademark converted into a rudimentary, totally unexplained, side prop. As he falls, so does the film.

Despite the two-hour running time, it seems shallow and incomplete, rushed to an unsatisfying new ending that's painfully generic. No surprise it took Hollywood another sixteen years to give it another shot - this is a stain.