Hannibal Rising Fails to Impress

The Silence of the Lambs begin the first of five installments that delved into the mind of one of the most perplexed yet deeply disturbing characters of all cinematic history. Starring Jody Foster and Sir Anthony Hopkins, the film sent chills and shrills through the movie going audiences worldwide. The sheer gravity and horror the plot and storyline perpetuated were nothing like anything seen before at the time of its release.

The successful original film is based on the novel by Thomas Harris. And, five installments later the attempt to recapture that dynamic in Hannibal Rising has failed dismally at the weekend box office opener. What is worst is that it also fails to impress fans of the long-standing franchise that held great anticipation for the terrifying and calculating Hannibal Lecctor as young and very troubled man.

The first installment featured the mature aged sociopathic psychiatrist Dr Hannibal with an appetite for humans. The cannibal Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal Lecter" as he was called met his match in the courageous Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, when she is sent to see the imprisoned Lecter to ask his expert advice on catching a serial killer given the name Buffalo Bill, who is abducting women and skinning them.

Hannibal Rising, a prequel to Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal, takes the audience step by step into the events that lead the young Hannibal into becoming the infamous serial killer of the previous films and books. The younger version of Hannibal and take on the older cannibal Hannibal meets with an enormous yawn rather that a thriller bang.

Gaspard Ulliel plays a frightening depiction of young Hannibal. Gaspard Ulliel, a French actor and former male fashion model, tries hard to bring a real psychotic element to the Hannibal's beginnings as pure evil. There is intensity about his portrayal of Hannibal. From the minute Ulliel takes his first breath and utters Hannibal's first words there is no mistaking that he is young Hannibal, but it fall short just the same.