Hannibal Rising (2007)I've seen The Silence of the Lambs (1991) which is rather unique, and I've seen the follow up Hannibal (2001) which was OK, not as good as its predecessor. I happened to spot Hannibal Rising the DVD (uncut edition) while out shopping and never knew of it's existence. On sale at the give-away price of £1 I decided to give it ago, all the while thinking, it'll probably be rubbish, not to mention it's a prequel, which is something I tend to avoid, as I prefer moving forward, rather than backwards.While waiting for Hannibal Rising to start, I had less than positive preconceived ideas that I was about to endure a slasher type affair cashing in on the success of The Silence of the Lambs. Much to my surprise, I was completely wrong. The story begins during World War 2 and the film makers have done an impressive job recreating the era. There are tanks, planes, trains, boats, it looks and feels big budget. Far from being a low budget slasher type blood fest cash in, Hannibal Rising looks like a serious drama, and to some degree felt better than The Silence of the Lambs. The cast do a good job, although I did find Hannibal Lecter (Gaspard Ulliel) possibly too clean cut, stylish for the part. There is a slightly polished possibly over stylised look to the film, giving it a slightly Harry Potter adventure vibe. I won't described the story here, as many others here on IMDb already have.Hannibal Rising isn't a top end block buster, neither is it a bottom dwelling dud. It's definitely above average.

I've been wanting to see Silence of the Lambs and all the other movies again, but I decided to start with Hannibal Rising. Not because of chronological order, but mostly because Hannibal Rising feels so separate from them all. Mostly because Hannibal Lecter in this movie doesn't seem like Hannibal Lecter at all. That's mostly because in Silence of the Lambs (if I recall correctly) Starling asked Lecter why he is the way he is, what happened to him. Lecter replies with "Nothing happened to me. I happened." So everything that Hannibal Rising kind of nullifies that answer completely, thus changing Lecter's character far too much in my taste.This is why I wanted to watch this movie separately, to distance it from the others. It's more like a film about someone else named Hannibal Lecter than the same person. You can see Thomas Harris's skillful writing in the way how history is very present in the story. Not just as in "Harris definitely did his research" but like the war is present in everyone's and it comes up a lot, but that feels natural instead of like throwing in tragic backstories for everyone. But also there's less skillful writing present, inconsistencies in Hannibal's nature. Manners and respect are always important to Hannibal, and he murders a man just because he was rude to lady Murasaki, but he still kind of respects lady Murasaki's ancestors by using their sword, even though lady Murasaki explains she can only touch it once a year to clean it. So where's the line?Even if Hannibal in this movie doesn't feel like Hannibal, Gaspard Ulliel still makes an excellent performance. He has clearly watched sir Anthony Hopkins closely to get the same kind of manners, but also he's talented enough to not get too concerned with sir Hopkins' iconic portrayal. There's also something about the pace of the movie I don't like, mostly because of the beginning and Hannibal and Mischa as kids, however I'm not certain how I would fix that. Visually of course this movie is stunning, and they aren't too frugal with the amount of blood and gore. Violence feels more present in the other movies compared to this one. Hannibal Rising is a decent movie, and it could be good, but it feels all too distant compared to all the others. Something is missing, yet there's something new and intriguing. That would be good if it really felt the same.

Just finished watching the Hannibal show and thought I should get into watching the movies in sequence. Hannibal Rising is beautifully shot and shows how Hannibal became Hannibal the cannibal. Would've loved to see an other movie or two during his younger years showing his character develop more. Aaron Thomas did a great job playing the part as well.

Seriously underrated and unreasonably criticized movie. It is accused to exist only to milk additional money from successful franchise, that demystifying of psycho killer is spoiling whole franchise, that Gaspard Ulliel can not fill the shoes of Anthony Hopkins and similar nonsense. Lack of Hopkins is one and only downside of this movie, but it was unavoidable. And yes, no one could possibly fill the shoes of Hopkins, but Hopkins could not act young Lecter, he had to be replaced and Gaspard did great job in this role. To me, he is even more creepy than Hopkins. In every other way this movie does not fall behind the rest of the franchise.7,5/10