Hannibal Rising: Movie & DVD Review (2007)

(Originally published 2007)

The new Hannibal Lecter movie, "Hannibal Rising," is an origins movie that follows the serial killer's early years. As you might expect, those years didn't involve much time in a sandbox, unless of course Hannibal's spade was used as an instrument of death.

Working from novelist Thomas Harris' script (his first in the franchise), director Peter Webber designs a movie concerned with explaining the reasons behind Hannibal's madness, thus stripping the character of mystery while courting its share of sympathy. Everybody involved with the movie seems turned on about what turned Lecter into the deadly little charmer he became. What created such a beast? The absence of fava beans in his pabulum? Hardly. In this case, it was that old Hollywood standby, the Nazis.

The film opens in Lithuania toward the end of World War II. It's 1944 and at Lecter Castle--yes, Lecter Castle--the privileged Lecter clan, including Hannibal (Aaron Thomas) and his very young sister Mischa (Helena Lia Tachovska), are busy evacuating to a safe house in the country. Their arrival proves a mistake--into their midst steamroll the Soviets by land, the Germans by air. A battle ensues, bombs explode, and Hannibal and Mischa's parents find themselves among the dead.

Left to fend for themselves, the siblings make the best of it until into their lives comes a scrappy group of starving war miscreants who shackle them, abuse them and then, consumed by hunger, see in plump Mischa something of a feast. They decide to eat the poor thing, which turns Lecter's mind to the dark side and sets the movie up for its bloody plot of revenge.

Fastfoward eight years. Now played by Gaspart Ulliel, Lecter flees a Soviet orphanage for France, where his wealthy aunt Murasaki resides. As played by the Chinese actress Gong Li ("Memoirs of a Geisha"), Murasaki is a hot-looking widow whose beauty and kindness attract Hannibal in ways that are so endearing, he beheads a butcher who bullies her at the market.

A conflicted Murasaki finds the act almost touching. On the flip side, she's also concerned, particularly since Hannibal's deadly dalliances are attracting the attention of Inspector Popil (Dominic West), who has to be one of the dumbest detectives in Paris. As often as Hannibal kills, sometimes right under Popil's nose, the inspector can't find the evidence to put him away. Conveniently, this allows the movie its streak of violence--Hannibal stalks those who ate his sister, brings them down and feasts on their cheeks.

Its lack of logic aside, the movie does look good, it isn't dull and moments are cheap fun. That said, there's something depressing in the fact that this offspring of a modern-day classic, "Silence of the Lambs," has become as cheap as Clarice's shoes. If there is a next time--and there likely will be, perhaps in another prequel, "Hannibal: L'Enfant Terrible"--here's hoping that Harris has the good sense to show some restraint and not allow Hannibal to nurse.

Grade: C