When The Silence Of The Lambs was released nearly twenty years ago to critical acclaim and overwhelming box office success, the prospect of sequels was hungrily discussed among critics and financiers alike. But as time passed, studios went bankrupt, and markets were saturated, the hunger for stories of an articulate, clever serial killer diminished. And so it was in 2001 when director Ridley Scott set his sights upon author Thomas Harris' sequel, a rather dull and tepid novel named after its main character. Unfortunately, in deleting details from the novel that stood out and gave the novel its redeeming characteristics, Scott made a film that should have forever slammed the door on Lecter. Instead, a remake of Red Dragon (albeit a significantly better one) and another novel later, both Harris and director Peter Webber have brought us yet another mediocre serial killer film that in this case tries to pose as an intellectual human drama. It fails so miserably at this that in contrast to Hannibal, Hannibal Rising has not a redeeming feature.
Part of the problem stems from the mentality of the audience that the film panders to. In the eyes of the audience, murderers are evil and therefore must never be understood, merely exterminated like vermin. Of course, the same applies in their mentality towards those who hear a repetitive load of garbage when others hear a grammy winner, but that is partly the point. A general, a warrior, or even a good chess player will tell you that in order to really defeat an enemy, you must first understand him. And that is, to an extent, what Hannibal Rising in both novel and film format has attempted to provide. The problem being the same as that experienced when dealing with the Daleks, Michael Myers, Pinhead, or any number of other villains you care to name. Namely, the more we know about Hannibal, the less interesting he becomes. Of course, this is partly the fault of the manner in which Harris fills in details, but it is also the choice of which details you fill in that make all of the difference.
The Silence Of The Lambs allowed us to speculate about how Hannibal Lecter is able to escape some unusual containment measures. His guards get sloppy, and he takes advantage of the fact that he is much more clever than them at just the right point to necessitate 2001's Hannibal. This is more than enough to generate a good story and some powerful scenes. But Hannibal Rising has to take it a few steps too far. For instance, did you know that Hannibal Lecter had a Japanese aunt with whom he was beginning to have a semi-incestuous relationship? Granted, the film leaves out a mass of details that I picked up from the synopsis on the back of the novel, but that is partly my point. The aforementioned synopsis has it that Lecter puts up a struggle against the demons that have been riding on his shoulders since the end of World War II. The film does nothing to so much as indicate a struggle. He simply gets it into his head to kill someone he thinks he recognises in a fit of pique.
This might have flown if they had picked an actor with enough charisma or presence to portray a teenaged Hannibal Lecter. I have grown tired of reading comparisons between the great Anthony Hopkins and his apparent successor, one Gaspard Ulliel. Gaspard is not merely a bad choice for Lecter because he is a lesser actor than Hopkins. Anyone who has read any of the Lecter novels will know that Lecter not only oozes class, but has a big problem with those who have no class or are impolite, or both. Being that I have not read the novel, I can only take a guess about this, but I have a funny feeling that if Hannibal killed a man who insulted his Japanese aunt, it would simply be a judgement upon the man's lack of class or communicative ability. It would not be such an emotion-charged execution. The use of an illustration of the man's severed head was a nice touch, but like the hanging and disembowelling depicted in Hannibal, it has all the impact of footage of a fluffy rabbit bouncing through the snow.
Since people have been beating Ulliel's performance to death, I think it is fair to discuss the other poor performances. They say that a protagonist is only as good as his antagonist, so one has to talk a bit about Rhys Ifans. Rhys has a pretty thankless task, portraying a villain who is not only meant to be without any redeeming features, but has also been left by the screenplay without a third dimension. For this film to work as a tragedy in the sense that Hannibal ends the film as worthy of fear and scorn as his childhood captors, Grutas has to have more than just an evil face. He does not. He is not even a credible evil figure. All we know about him at the beginning of the film is that he is a deserter from the German army as the Russian army closes in on the Eastern front. We are never told if he had ambitions to be anything else, what he thinks of what he did towards the end of the war, or what effect, if any, the knowledge of the past has on him. He is a cardboard cutout, and this robs young Hannibal Lecter of any of the credibility or emotion he has as a character.
Hannibal Rising is a two out of ten film. If it missed the mark any more thoroughly, it would be an episode of MST3K that does not even require commentary. With such a proliferation of better ideas out there, its presence is an insult.
Part of the problem stems from the mentality of the audience that the film panders to. In the eyes of the audience, murderers are evil and therefore must never be understood, merely exterminated like vermin. Of course, the same applies in their mentality towards those who hear a repetitive load of garbage when others hear a grammy winner, but that is partly the point. A general, a warrior, or even a good chess player will tell you that in order to really defeat an enemy, you must first understand him. And that is, to an extent, what Hannibal Rising in both novel and film format has attempted to provide. The problem being the same as that experienced when dealing with the Daleks, Michael Myers, Pinhead, or any number of other villains you care to name. Namely, the more we know about Hannibal, the less interesting he becomes. Of course, this is partly the fault of the manner in which Harris fills in details, but it is also the choice of which details you fill in that make all of the difference.
The Silence Of The Lambs allowed us to speculate about how Hannibal Lecter is able to escape some unusual containment measures. His guards get sloppy, and he takes advantage of the fact that he is much more clever than them at just the right point to necessitate 2001's Hannibal. This is more than enough to generate a good story and some powerful scenes. But Hannibal Rising has to take it a few steps too far. For instance, did you know that Hannibal Lecter had a Japanese aunt with whom he was beginning to have a semi-incestuous relationship? Granted, the film leaves out a mass of details that I picked up from the synopsis on the back of the novel, but that is partly my point. The aforementioned synopsis has it that Lecter puts up a struggle against the demons that have been riding on his shoulders since the end of World War II. The film does nothing to so much as indicate a struggle. He simply gets it into his head to kill someone he thinks he recognises in a fit of pique.
This might have flown if they had picked an actor with enough charisma or presence to portray a teenaged Hannibal Lecter. I have grown tired of reading comparisons between the great Anthony Hopkins and his apparent successor, one Gaspard Ulliel. Gaspard is not merely a bad choice for Lecter because he is a lesser actor than Hopkins. Anyone who has read any of the Lecter novels will know that Lecter not only oozes class, but has a big problem with those who have no class or are impolite, or both. Being that I have not read the novel, I can only take a guess about this, but I have a funny feeling that if Hannibal killed a man who insulted his Japanese aunt, it would simply be a judgement upon the man's lack of class or communicative ability. It would not be such an emotion-charged execution. The use of an illustration of the man's severed head was a nice touch, but like the hanging and disembowelling depicted in Hannibal, it has all the impact of footage of a fluffy rabbit bouncing through the snow.
Since people have been beating Ulliel's performance to death, I think it is fair to discuss the other poor performances. They say that a protagonist is only as good as his antagonist, so one has to talk a bit about Rhys Ifans. Rhys has a pretty thankless task, portraying a villain who is not only meant to be without any redeeming features, but has also been left by the screenplay without a third dimension. For this film to work as a tragedy in the sense that Hannibal ends the film as worthy of fear and scorn as his childhood captors, Grutas has to have more than just an evil face. He does not. He is not even a credible evil figure. All we know about him at the beginning of the film is that he is a deserter from the German army as the Russian army closes in on the Eastern front. We are never told if he had ambitions to be anything else, what he thinks of what he did towards the end of the war, or what effect, if any, the knowledge of the past has on him. He is a cardboard cutout, and this robs young Hannibal Lecter of any of the credibility or emotion he has as a character.
Hannibal Rising is a two out of ten film. If it missed the mark any more thoroughly, it would be an episode of MST3K that does not even require commentary. With such a proliferation of better ideas out there, its presence is an insult.