Click Here For Our Interview with Gaspard Ulliel

Click Here For Our Interview with Peter Webber

Hannibal Rising

One of the many great subtleties of The Silence of the Lambs was the fact that Hannibal Lecter was only on screen for a mere 16 minutes. 16 minutes was all it took for Lecter to go down in infamy. The performance was so powerful and the character so skillfully etched that Anthony Hopkins' screen time was the shortest ever to win a lead acting Oscar.

Ever since then, this subtlety has been completely squandered by dim-witted execs who decided to eliminate much of Hannibal's mystery in order to make a quick buck. They've exhausted everything we know, don't know and didn't want to know about the iconic serial killer. The Silence of the Lambs was followed by Hannibal. It failed to capture the same intensity as Silence but due to some interesting direction from Ridley Scott and a bizarre source novel from Thomas Harris, it was still a handsome oddity.

Brett Ratner followed with Red Dragon which was a bland but solidly entertaining popcorn thriller although Hopkins was reduced to snarling and making quotably comic remarks. Hardly the stuff of nightmares. So, just when you'd assume it was all justifiably over, here comes Hannibal Rising.

This new pic follows Hannibal's earlier years, alluded to in fits and spurts before, yet always kept predominantly in the dark. We've never been quite sure why Hannibal does what he does and it's an intriguing question to be asked. It's one which need never have been answered however, the mystery far more compelling than the truth. Thomas Harris and the Weinsteins obviously think such mystery is in need of being thrust into light, processed and marketed to a teen-friendly audience. Satan, take note.

It all starts with Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) as a young child, caught in the middle of war. Living in Lithuania with his parents and sister, he is forced to hide from the soldiers who put them under attack. His parents are murdered and he is taken prisoner with his sister. He manages to survive the ordeal but a terrifying fate is handed to his younger sister. From then on we see him go from an orphanage to refuge with his aunt, Lady Murasaki (Gong Li).

She teaches him the way of the samurai and he becomes a medical student, deciding to seek revenge on the criminals that killed his sister.

From then on the movie turns into a gory revenge thriller, the kind we've seen hundreds of times before. Saturday night multiplex audiences will be screaming and hollering but for those who still hold any of the other Hannibal films in high regard, they'll be sorely disappointed.

The main problem with the story is that it's one which needn't have been told in the first place. We don't really need to know

the specifics of Hannibal's history. If anything, they make him a more sympathetic person, destroying all of the menace created in Silence. The whole film just feels like a hollow money-making exercise. The direction (from Girl With A Pearl Earring helmer Peter Webber) is flat and workmanlike, even managing to make Brett Ratner seem stylish.

The script, also written depressingly by Thomas Harris, based on his new book, is boring, predictable and without any of the flair that was evident in his other novels. An attempt is made to create a Clarice style character for Hannibal to bounce off, with a suspicious detective, played by Dominic West. But when he's faced off against Jodie Foster and Edward Norton, he makes mincemeat out of West who also indulges in a dull romantic subplot with Gong Li.

Gaspard Ulliel as Hannibal isn't all bad and does have something of a screen presence but he's not really haunting enough to truly register. It's kind of a shame that an Oscar winning picture has been watered down and reduced to such formulaic drivel as this. There's very little of Hannibal's earlier years that need to be told. His first killings are all gore and little effect. Rather like the recent Chainsaw Massacre prequel, the film cares less about delving into the psychology of the character and more about stretching an already stretched franchise to its very limit. Oh and hopefully making a ton of money along the way.

Less is more and it's a lesson Hollywood has yet again failed to notice. An interesting character has once again been thrashed onto the mortuary slab and ripped apart for everyone to see. The stench of it's ugly innards threatening to spoil the memory of what's come before.

Hannibal once said that he only ate those that were rude. If only he'd add unimaginative and greedy to that list and then this piece of trash might never have been made in the first place.

Movie Grade: D+

Synopsis:

This is the story of the monster Hannibal Lecter’s formative years. These experiences as a child and young adult led to his remarkable contribution to the fields of medicine, music, painting and forensics. We begin in World War II at the medieval castle in Lithuania built by Dr. Lecter’s forebear, Hannibal the Grim. The child Hannibal survives the horrors of the Eastern Front and escapes the grim Soviet aftermath to find refuge in France with the widow of his uncle, mysterious and beautiful Japanese descended from Lady Murasaki Shikibu, author of the Tale of Genji. Her kind and wise attentions help him understand his unbearable recollections of the war. Remembering, he finds the means to visit the outlaw predators that changed him forever as they battened on helpless during the collapse of the Eastern Front. Hannibal helps these war criminals toward self-knowledge even as we see his

own nature become clear to him.