Hannibal Rising (2007)

What made Hannibal the beast he was?

Indeed, director Peter Webber and author Thomas Harris bring us Hannibal Lector (ne: Lecter) the formative years. Off the bat you have to say it's not overtly a horror film, something which has proved to have annoyed many who ventured in expecting something different. Which on one hand is a shame because it's a very effective thriller, ripe with literary smarts and boasting some very good acting performances. While there is horrors around, genuine ones that history has taught us as fact.

On the other hand it is a disappointment to fans of the Hannibal series, and to horror fans in general. The marketing didn't help, it was sold to all and sundry along the lines as the cannibal begins in earnest, thus nobody was quite prepared for the fact Hannibal was a normal kid once, even human! Once the pic kicks into being a revenge killer thriller, it lacks an emotional wallop, with the screenplay shaking too many eggs in the basket and not coming up with a tasty fava bean based omelet.

Smart tech credits help to still further keep this out of stinkerville and above average, but the heavy feeling of missed opportunities and poor writing hangs heavy as the end credits roll. 6/10

I’ve always equated Hannibal Lecter with the Shark from Jaws. Sure, the good doctor is a more entertaining host — until he gets peckish — but they both essentially kill to feed. That’s all the motivation they require. How silly would it be to give a shark a tragic origin story?

About as silly as setting a film in Lithuania and France with French and Lithuanian characters and then having everybody speak English. Or assigning Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) a Japanese mentoress (played by a Chinese actress) who teaches him martial arts, which he must have tucked away in the attic of his Memory Palace and never bothered to dust off ever again. Or shooting a scene where Hannibal finds and wears a mask that must have belonged to a cannibalistic samurai. Hannibals puts it on and looks straight ahead, all but winking at the camera. Talk about determinism.

The makers of Hannibal Rising (2007) were so pleased with this superfluous nod to their betters that they forgot to give Hannibal a mask of sanity, with Ulliel never not in Crispin Glover mode. Hannibal can easily fool a polygraph — never mind that polygraph tests mean very little — but when and how did he pick up this particular ability? I guess the implication is that he’s crazy like a fox or something.

What is made explicit is that young Hannibal has a habit of standing up to “bullies.” This sort of aligns with his later policy of eating “the rude” — which is, of course, not a reason but a rationalization. There was a serial killer who believed his murders prevented earthquakes. Should we give him a posthumous medal?

That the bullies Hannibal stands up to are often fascists — the ultimate historical and cinematic villains — positions Hannibal as a paladin of justice rather than a cold-blooded, psychopathic killer. Hannibal Rising expects us to forget that Lecter would later become a Mengele-like sadist who tricked Mason Verger into peeling his own face with pieces of a broken mirror and feeding it to dogs, and who also feeds Paul Krendler bits of his own sautéed brain.

At the same time, whether defending his Chinese-Japanese aunt’s honor or avenging his little sister, Hannibal clearly enjoys the carnage he inflicts on others — meaning that the filmmakers couldn’t bear to entirely part with the cold-blooded, psychopathic killer thing after all.