Hannibal Rising

Great disappointment, the weakest Hannibal hands down. The plot is very unoriginal and boring, the murders aren’t interesting and there are lots of unnecessary scenes and holes in logic. Gaspard Ulliel looks silly rather than demonic and in two of the murders he almost made me burst out in laughter, which doesn’t happen often and, more importantly, shouldn’t happen. 50% (03/12/2007)

Somehow I didn't understand what Hannibal was born for. To be essentially a positive character destroyed by vengeance? To be an impressive portrait of a soul destroyed by war? Or to become, at least for a moment, a basically sympathetic hero-avenger? Even after 117 minutes of Webber's film, I didn't understand much more than that. The strange mess with a nickel-and-dime psychology alternates moments of apparent realism with B-movie motifs, it is unable to be either original or impressive - it's just perfectly nothing, confused, without gradation, flair... or anything memorable. Perhaps only Gaspard Ulliel had crazy charm and inner cohesion. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about the film as a whole. (27/08/2007)

I haven’t read Thomas Harris, and I also don't have a particularly positive relationship with this series, but Hannibal Rising is fine as a standalone post-war drama. For example, Gong Li is absolutely great, she's just contextually very misbecoming. So it’s all positive in reminding us of the reality that cannibalism may not be something from the realm of legends and hearsay, or one of the deviations of snobbery. (23/09/2012)

An absolute mess-up of everything. Please don’t get mad, but I was so incredibly unamused by this movie that it also made me incredibly angry. It's not even a little bit suspenseful, all the scenes - war, "plot" (?) or murder - are filmed in such a way that you just can't get interested. The Hannibal character is a chapter in itself - an unsympathetic jerk who alternates between two expressions, i.e., wannabe angry and awkwardly broody. Plus, I don't understand, I really don't, that the script could have been written directly by Thomas Harris. The only thing that saved Hannibal Rising from being a waste was the music, which was co-written by my favorite madman, Ilan Eshkeri. Otherwise, yuck and gross. When the film is based on shots of bloody blades, disemboweled entrails and other scenes from a butcher shop, and when you see all that but still don't enjoy it... Something's wrong. (02/12/2009)

This film squeezes money out of an infamous brand, done in the monstrously unfair manner of a cheap TV adaptation, and lacking elegance and distinction. Instead, it shows Hannibal as a traumatized child who has been bewitched by a samurai in France and would like to take it out on his aunt. Thomas Harris on drugs, Marek Vašut with a knife in his throat, and we can announce R.I.P to Gaspard Ulliel, whose psychopathic look in his eyes suited him so well, knowing full well that he was closing his way out, even though he is an excellent actor. (03/04/2008)