Top Of Mind

Somehow, going in to see Hannibal Rising, I kept thinking, now I will finally get to see how someone become really really evil - kinda like what I expected from Star Wars prequels. The good news is that you do get a more compelling story than the Star Wars prequels, but the bad news is that the Star Wars prequels did not set that high a cinematic standard.

I was never a fan of the Hannibal movies or even the books. I mildly enjoyed Silence of the Lambs, but it never gave me the “chills,” that some wellknown movie critics supposedly got. And the only reason I saw Red Dragon was thanks to my HBO subscription.

But somehow I did expected a decently entertaining movie.

It tells the story of how Hannibal became what he is in Silence of the Lambs. At least in that movie Hannibal was compelling, intriguing and diabolical. Unfortunately all this movie managed to do was to strip away whatever mystique that surrounded that character.

We get to see how his mistreatment in WWII turns him into a revenge seeking Nazi killer. That is all you need to know going in. Yeah, there are details of how he takes revenge by killing off his tormentors, but even the more gruesome ones are not compelling. Gong Li adds some needed color to this otherwise drab movie, but just like her being cast in Miami Vice, she is simply miscast. She plays Lady Murasaki, who was bought in for no other reason than to bring some unnecessary oriental mystical stuff about Samurais - don’t ask.

While Hannibal wasn’t as badly portrayed as say Anakin was, a new comer Gaspard Ulliel performance wasn’t great either. But it is hard to feel any sense of drama when the worse thing this Hannibal does is chew off people’s cheeks - but that may not be his fault but because of a script bereft of any drama or suspense.

Seeing Hannibal Rising, I come to the conclusion that prequels are a bad idea when the original characters like Vader and Hannibal were so compelling portrayed. After squirming through the movie for two hours, I only got scared at the very end when I realized that there could potentially be a sequel.

I would gladly have missed this movie knowing what I do now. Save two hours of your time and go see a more entertaining movie like - TMNT, which I will review separately.