It is 200 years before the birth of Christ and Rome is the new superpower of the ancient world. She believes she is invincible - but one man is destined to change that. He is a man bound by oath to avenge the wrongs inflicted on his home and, in pursuit of revenge, he will stop at nothing. Hannibal explores the man behind the myth, revealing what drove the 26-year-old to mastermind one of the most audacious military moves in history. With 40,000 soldiers and 37 elephants, he marched 1,500 miles to challenge his enemies on their own soil. It was an act so daring that few people believed it possible. Hannibal combines drama, the latest historical research and state-of-the-art CGI to bring this spectacular story to life. The BBC makes a lot of good historical documentaries and the story of Hannibal has everything needed for a great one. This treatment was very far from it, simply because it was too short. Given the length of Hannibal's campaign, much longer than Alexander's, a two hour documentary would be the minimum.<br/><br/>Okay, BBC doesn't have the budget and our knowledge of Hannibal is incomplete, not to mention that much of what we do know is in contention. Still, Hannibal's genius didn't just lie in his crossing of the alps and Cannae, but in general logistics. His being able to outmaneuver his opponents again and again. I would love to have seen the crossing of the Rhone, both Trebbia and Trasimene, and a lot more detail on Cannae and Zama, all of which are timeless classics in classical history. The fact that our knowledge is incomplete also allows for a lot of opportunists for informed guesswork and gap-filling, which the producers have missed out on.<br/><br/>All this is a huge shame because Siddig was a very believable Hannibal and a good actor. In general, BBC documentaries do history much better than Hollywood, because attention is given to accuracy, and the target audience is more specific. It's just unfortunate that they're limited by such things and budget and time constraints. Given the length of this show, it is unlikely that it will be released on DVD, and it will be a long time before there will be another attempt at Hannibal… A great story and a match made in heaven you'd think considering the Beebs past efforts. Despite its scholarly pretensions though this one's a real clunker. <br/><br/>Hanibal starts out promisingly. Soon in though face off between the whiny and diminutive Hanibal and the extremely over acted Roman envoy set the tone. <br/><br/>The writing is just awful and when in a strategic meeting Hannibal refers to 'France' and 'Spain' rather than 'Gaul' and 'Iberia' then you know this isn't gonna bit the usual BBC highbrow standards.<br/><br/>The battle scenes in HD compensate for the toe curlingly bad dialogue though, especially those of the elephants charging collumns of Romans. (altough in reality only one elephant made it alive over the alps.)<br/><br/>A good effort on the technical side. Now if only can marry the folks at the beeb who knock out the quality stuff with these guys we could be in for some epic TV.
Dercou replied
353 weeks ago