Hannibal better before 'Rising'

Just when you thought the story of film's most legendary psychopath could go no further, Hollywood has delivered us a prequel. How unfitting for a character as diabolic and unfathomable as Hannibal Lecter. \nWhat made Hannibal such an extraordinary character was precisely the reason that Thomas Harris should have never written "Hannibal Rising:" Hannibal was great because we knew so little about who he really was. In the Thomas Harris classic, "The Silence of the Lambs," and its equally worthy predecessor, "Red Dragon," Hannibal was behind prison bars the entire time and Lecter's past could only be ascertained through people familiar with his history. Thus, we heard how the brilliant psychiatrist ate a nurse's face and his pulse never went over 85, how he gruesomely murdered nine people and in "Lambs," we witnessed him in one of the greatest escape scenes ever put on film. \nLecter's fascination with classical music, sketching and analyzing his subjects, this time as a teenager, just doesn't strike the same chord as it did when Sir Anthony Hopkins donned the name Hannibal Lecter. This is not to take away from the performance of Gaspard Ulliel, who does the young Hannibal some justice, but even his fearsome performance cannot save the film. \nThe film opens in Lithuania toward the end of World War II, when a young Hannibal and his sister watch as their parents die in a haze of Russian and Nazi gunfire. The children are then tormented by rebel soldiers who ultimately murder and cannibalize Hannibal's younger sister, a vision that haunts Hannibal's dreams and evidently lays the foundation for Hannibal's future appetites. After tracking down the wife (Gong Li) of his uncle in France, Hannibal enrolls in medical school, all the while developing a taste for human flesh and vowing revenge on the men who killed his sister. \nThe movie plays out as more of a horror film than a character study. There are several repugnant death scenes, including decapitations, and also countless references to cannibalism. How else could we expect an older Hannibal to eat a census taker's liver "with fava beans and a nice chianti?" In addition to the horror-like genre, the film adopts a "Count of Monte Cristo/Kill Bill"-type (notice the anachronistic samurai swords) revenge plot as Hannibal hunts down his sister's murderers one by one. While Hannibal is the protagonist of the story, by the film's end, I could not help but root against the most vicious killer finishing his mission. He is the definition of anti-hero. \nThe reason "Hannibal Rising" fails to impress is because of what we could have suspected when Clarice Starling first encountered Dr. Lecter in "Lambs." Certainly, he is a most memorable character, but a character as complex as Lecter cannot be given a past that aptly explains why he has become the insane, yet calculated, individual he is. \nDirector Peter Webber ("Girl with a Pearl Earring") did what he could with Thomas Harris' script, but there is a lesson to be learned here: Quit when you're ahead.