DVD Review - “Hannibal Rising”
GRADE: C-
The only half way decent sequel to the “Silence of the Lambs” franchise was “Red Dragon”. Every other film about the life of Hannibal Lechter, besides the classic “Silence of the Lambs”, is pretty pathetic. “Hannibal Rising” comes close to creating a thrilling story, but I just couldn’t get past some of the silly flashback scenes and over the top acting. For the most part I was entertained by “Hannibal Rising” and would recommend it for cable viewing but that is about it.
“Hannibal Rising” wants to be smart and deep but just comes off as a straight to video prequel. The movie has a good beginning but starts to lose steam as Hannibal becomes a young man. The actor that plays “Hannibal” just doesn’t quite fit the character and he doesn’t even resemble Sir Anthony Hopkins in the slightest. The simplistic explanation of Lechter’s psychotic and horrific tendencies is pretty hokey and not very believable. It would seem that a serial killer would be born with a pre-disposition for eating human flesh and not because he witnesses his little sister eaten by Russians during World War 2.
I give this movie an just an o.k. review for the fact I that I wasn’t bored entirely, end the end I was just not that impressed. I am hoping that this will be the last of the “Silence of the Lambs” films. There was no real reason to continue past the first Oscar winning feature film. When movies like this get made it is hard to believe that anything but greed was behind the idea to put this movie onto the big screen. Luckily the Hannibal Lechter follow up movies will never cheapen the brilliance that “Silence of the Lambs” is.
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