Bridget 1Hannibal Rising (2007)
June 29th 2008 16:13
Creepy
Every great villain has a great origin story. People evolve personalities based upon their experiences throughout their lives, so an origin story tries to answer the question: what could have possibly happened to make someone so diabolically evil?
Hannibal Rising (2007) is the great Hannibal Lector’s origin story. It is a sad tale of revenge, revealing the events that turn a young boy into the monstrous Dr. Lector.
Lector was, of course, made famous in Silence of the Lambs (1991) by actor, Anthony Hopkins. In Hannibal Rising, we see Lector as a small boy (Aaran Thomas) and then as a young murderous adult (Gaspard Ulliel).
Perhaps the greatest villain in movies history is Darth Vadar. Audiences all over the world flocked to cinemas just so that they could try and get some insight into how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. The evil villains we love to watch have deep seeded psychological issues that have molded their minds into the warped mental state that motivates them to act the way they do, which is why it is so morbidly fascinating to watch. Hannibal Rising is interesting for this reason.
The film begins in 1944 during the war. While eight-year-old Hannibal Lector and his younger sister, Mischa are trying to survive in a cabin in the woods, they are found by a group of lecherous SS militiamen. The events that unfold are what are responsible for turning Hannibal into the monster he becomes. Needless to say, the beginning of the film is gruesome and horrifying. The rest of it is a revenge story, with Lector going after the men whose actions affected him so deeply.
Gaspard Ulliel does an okay job of portraying Lector as a young adult, however, he completely lacks the charisma and charm of Anthony Hopkins, which is disappointing. This, however, is an unfair thing to say, because we are meeting Lector before he was a brilliant psychologist with developed charisma. We are meeting him as he is developing his murderous traits. We are meeting him as he becomes a monster.
Now I understand why origin stories are often forgotten about in movies. The Star Wars franchise originally started with Episode 4: A New Hope, because it wasn’t necessary to explain in detail how Darth Vadar came to be (it really wasn’t- the new movies were terrible, I don’t care what you Star Wars nerds say). Sometimes it is better to leave the audiences wondering- how?
Hannibal Rising isn’t a bad movie, but it isn’t particularly great, and like the new Star Wars films, it wasn’t necessary. In the big scheme of the Hannibal Lector franchise, it’s a bit of an anti-climax because it is attempting to explain Lector’s personality as the cause of an event, rather than being the result of a brilliant (and disturbing) mind.
2.5 out of 5
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