Hannibal Rising
There are few villians I like, I mean LOVE, like Hannibal Lecter. Eversince his first proper introduction in Silence of the Lambs, I have had amorbid curiousity about him. How did he become the emotionless, methodicalkiller we all became fascinated by? In the movie Hannibal Rising, that question was meant to be answered.
Hannibal Rising tells the story of young Hannibal Lecter's traumaticchildhood in Nazi territory. His relationship with his little sister, hisyouth spent in a children's home and his taste for revenge are allchronicled and expanded upon in Rising. However, the Hannibal Lecterpresented in Rising is not truly the same Dr. Lecter we knew and loved from Lambs.
In Silence of the Lambs, Lecter is a science project for the institutionshead psychiatrist. AT every point, Lecter is analyzed and questioned in aneffort to 'understand' how he transformed from successful psychiatrist toserial killer. During one such interaction Lecter, basically, states that looking at his past would in NO WAY indicate his future would include killing. However Hannibal Rising does exactly that!
The film's basic premise is,"He had such a traumatic upbringing.... sought revenge for so long.... he is now pure evil incarnate and will kill forever." In my opinion, this does not hold true to the original character and that characters own lines from the previous Hannibal Lecter films. Though all of the books and screenplays have been written by Thomas Harris himself, it is almost like HannibalRising was written by another author. It is like he forgot who Hannibal Lecter was to begin with. The Lecter I knew had reason to kill but it was his own reason - rudeness, disgust, cleansing society, etc. - but that reason was NEVER anger and revenge.
The Lecter I knew would have thoughtkilling out of revenge and anger was remedial, childish and primitive. The Lecter I knew was too sophisticated for such lowly acts. It is thischaracter-disconnect that ultimately leads me to give Hannibal Rising an overall grade of B-.
Hannibal Rising recieves an overall grade breakdown as follows:
Story: C. Good story in it's own right but given the fact that HannibalLecter was already established, I don't believe this story is very true tohis character.
Acting: B. Most of the acting was pretty good and believable.
Visuals: C. Overall, they weren't too bad. However, it was certainly over-kill on the 'upclose Hannibal with blood around his mouth' shots.
Originality/Innovation: B. Nothing I haven't really seen before I would say.
Enjoyability grade: B-. If I had never seen any of the other movies or read the other books, it would have been great. However, as a true fan from dayone, this movie was somewhat of a disappointment.
Overall grade: B-. Not amazing but not terrible. If you enjoyed theprevious incarnations of Dr. Lecter you will probably enjoy this one aswell. However, if you are a true, honest fan of Hannibal the Cannibal, bewarned that this movie may entertain you, but ultimately make you angry for character violation.
Note: The movie and book are pretty much identical in this case, so you really only need to choose one.
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