Hannibal Rising

This bland piece of commercial crap oscillates between a dumb slasher and an adult thriller, with a very weak, almost TV-like formulaic script. There’s almost no connection with the original material; this flick just feeds off the name Hannibal. Sad. (26/03/2007)

My God, what have I done to deserve this? Hannibal with a samurai sword, an woman with a Hiroshima complex, lots of nonsense and a host of lousy actors. Next time they might take it from the other end, I suggest "Hannibal Rises Again: Revenge From The Grave." Thomas Harris, I know money is a nice thing, but you're a clown. (22/01/2008)

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)

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)

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)

When The Silence of the Lambs appeared in movie theaters, it wasn't the first film about a doctor with peculiar tastes and unpredictable behavior, but it immediately meant huge success for the audience and even for critics, because it was filmed with extraordinary elegance, a clever script, and skillful direction. These elements were able to elevate this typically B-movie theme with problematic ethical implications to an acclaimed classic of its genre. None of the films that followed The Silence of the Lambs succeeded for various reasons, but Hannibal Rising is the weakest of all those attempts. This film is one big disaster because it relies on a terrible script and obviously has an inadequate budget considering the ambitions it had. The screenwriter didn't address many things, so the film comes across as illogical and even ridiculous to anyone who doesn't settle for bloody action. Just a small example: Hannibal easily crosses the border of the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, freely travels through Soviet territory, and in the Baltics where a bloody civil war was raging and the NKVD was conducting mass ethnic cleansing to suppress the national liberation movement. It's about as likely as if I paraded through the sacred mosques of Mecca and Medina with a cross on my neck wearing muddy boots. The villains only have loosely outlined character traits and they are only interesting as food for a budding cannibal. The film relies on too many coincidences and many motifs come across as kitschy (for example, a beautiful Japanese aunt is expected to greet young Lecter in France, of course with a collection of samurai swords). The gang of villains, of course, relocates to France after the war so Lecter won't have far to go during his vengeful campaign... The opening part of the film feels deaf, because the worst massacres were happening in the Baltic states and Belarus during World War II, and the film barely draws from those wartime horrors. Cannibalism was actually relatively common - just think of what took place in besieged Leningrad or in concentration camps. Massacres of civilians and especially Jews were apocalyptic; history enthusiasts know how the population of Lviv was reduced within 48 hours after the Soviet army withdrew from the city. The screenwriter and director weren't able to utilize any of this and the motive of young Lecter's revenge compared to what hundreds of thousands of children were experiencing in Eastern Europe is unconvincing as an explanation for his psychopathic actions and fails as a justification in the style of a small criminal punishing a bigger one. Where The Silence of the Lambs played with the audience and created tension, Peter Webber's film is too concrete, so there are only a few brutal murders that are meant to carry the entire film... Overall impression: 40%. (22/09/2008)

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)

It's a shame to see such a prosaic and clichéd revenge story that has nothing to do with the famous character of Anthony Hopkins except perhaps the name. However, despite this shortcoming, Hannibal Rising is not entirely disposable. The minimalistic style is brilliant. The incredible cold scenes of the opening are followed by the colorful scenery of France. Everything is brilliantly lit and has a captivating atmosphere. The acting is average and the music is not particularly notable, but it’s still quite watchable. If you don’t desperately try to fit this prequel into the series about the famous cannibal, you may not necessarily be disgusted by it, because it is actually quite solid. (29/09/2008)

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)