Brett Ratner's "Red Dragon" creates a sinister world that psychologically connects the minds of two serial killers - Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) and the Tooth Fairy (Ralph Fiennes) - and ace FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton). Graham, who has the special ability to see inside a killer's mind, has retired after tracking down Lecter. Time has passed, and Graham moves to a hidden place where he lives with his wife (Mary Louise Parker) and son. One day, his former boss (Harvey Keitel), asks him to solve another criminal puzzle: the "Tooth Fairy" murders. A middle-class family has been murdered in their home during the full moon. Despite the entreaties of his wife, Graham takes the case and joins forces with his old nemesis.

Their relationship is based on unwilling mutual admiration and hatred, as they have much in common psychologically and intellectually. And the chase is on for the Tooth Fairy. Ratner's formula for a thriller is simple: horrifying violence and gore. It's not only about the kind of emotions and tensions that get bottled up in killers' minds, it's also our attitude toward this cruel, crazy world, inhabited by all sorts of villains and evil fairies. Lecter is a very rich character. Many great actors have admitted that there are no small roles, there are only small actors, and Hopkins proves it once again in "Red Dragon." This time, he's brilliantly turned Lecter, who, judging by the plot, might be considered a small part, into a full-sized, first-rate role.

Hopkins seems to feel pretty much at home trussed up in his familiar glass-walled cell. But it's not so much the cell in which Lecter is imprisoned as his inner, mental jail. "Red Dragon" works its way into a niche in our psyche that only horror movies can reach, which is why, despite Hopkins' charms, "Red Dragon" may turn out to be a downer for the sensitive souls in the audience.