Young Hannibal Lecter has his world torn apart by the atrocities of the Second World War, and vows to track down the men who killed his baby sister, gathering the skills he’ll need along the way.

Unlike many, I don’t believe remakes, sequels, adaptations and other ancillary films somehow cheapen the original source. These cinematic hanger-ons are usually pretty easy to ignore and/or forget. In the case of the offshoots of Silence of the Lambs I find that task to be even easier than most, since they barely resemble their father. In fact, I think that’s why I enjoy them as much as I do.

With Hannibal Rising (and Hannibal before it), the adventures of Lecter take a turn for the baroque with a mixture of beauty and brutality that is very rarely presented on the big screen. And where Blood and Chocolate tried to add some Old World charm to an All-American story, Hannibal Rising dives right in, without a single North American character in sight, a risky manouver for a major studio release. In many ways the entire movie is about a world recovering from and trying to forget a war that has left scars still fresh and sore. Every character is haunted, either by what they witnessed or by the acts they themselves commited. Even the setting has two faces, alternating between lush mansions and grimy back-alley markets.

No one can match Anthony Hopkins’ turn in the role, so why bother? Gaspard Ulliel provides just the right amount of guile, camp and irrational ruthlessness to raise the proceedings to the level of Grand Guignol. The gore, while sparse, is on par with other recent “torture porn” films like Hostel and Pan’s Labryinth in being highly effective when it does appear. If I had any real complaint it would be that the film is a little slow in parts, with a great deal of exposition. But really, anyone who has seen any of the previous films, or any serial killer movie in general, will already know what to expect walking in.

The anti-hero gets a bad rap. Critics and modern audiences seem to demand that their protaganists be portrayed as somehow relateable to their own lives. Why should we always drag fictional characters down to our level? Why can’t we let them be slightly ridiculous and over-the-top? And with all the lumbering brutes that dominate the slasher genre, isn’t it about time that we had a villain who possessed a level of refinement?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 11:08 am and is filed under Movies, Serial Killer, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.