The First Chapter In A Legacy
May 26th, 2007
Advantages:
Fills in the missing gaps of Lectors life
Disadvantages:
At times difficult to understand due to strong French accents
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Did you enjoy it?
Story
Characters / Performances
Special Effects
How does it compare to similar films?
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 sghawken
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During the Second World War the Lector family are forced to flee their luxurious castle before the Nazi forces arrive. Having fled to the woods to a secluded retreat the Lector’s get a few short moments to celebrate their good fortune in escaping safely. But this is short lived luck as a Russian tank stumbles upon their home and in a fight between the tank and a stream of fighter planes most of the Lector family are wiped out. The only two that remain are young Hannibal and his baby sister Mischa. Hannibal Rising tells the story of how Hannibal changed from a young innocent child, to a bitter and hate filled serial killer. At last the story is finally complete.
I met Hannibal Rising with a degree of wariness; I find the Hannibal movies to be hit and miss. The first movie Manhunter (Later remade as Red Dragon) was excellent, incredibly stylish and at times very disturbing. Silence Of The Lambs stood out against all the serial killer movie that went before it as a work of art. Hannibal was acceptable, but lacking in areas and at places overlong. And personally I found Red Dragon a pointless abomination of a movie, a pretty much near exact remake of Manhunter with in some ways a second rate cast. Hannibal Rising took a fair whack of abuse when it was released with more people hating it than not. I found that the start of Hannibal Rising was quite a laborious
chore, while I slightly familiar with the labours some movies turn to in trying to create a bigger picture; my other half lost interest 35 minutes in and took to reading a book exclaiming in her just so voice “This is rubbish!” So my first point to make on Hannibal Rising is that the start needs some attention, but its worth sticking with.
As Hannibal gets older he is in search of revenge for something that occurred in the house in the woods. This revenge is inspired by abuse his Japanese Aunt receives from a local butcher in a market. It’s at this point that the movie swiftly shifts from first to forth gear. Gaspard Ulliel who plays Hannibal and Li Gong who plays his Aunt Lady Murasaki Shikibu, spring into action in an almost “Crouching Tiger” manner its an incredibly well choreographed fight scene the borders along the lines of being “Amazing”. The fight ends abruptly when the Gendarme arrive, but for Hannibal; this is a battle that is far from over and later tracks down the butcher and takes him out of the equation. Again you get a secondary piece of monotony for about 15 minutes as Hannibal and his Aunt are quizzed by a police inspector, and during this time Hannibal gets his thoughts together to achieve a new goal that he has set himself, revenge on a group of Nazi stylized mercenaries that committed an offence back in his childhood. From the planning to the slow execution of his revenge the movie sits firmly in the third gear. This style of delivery is fine, but the final blow at the end of the movie falls far sharp a climax, but has a typical Hannibal movie abrupt ending.
I found the most annoying aspect of the movie was in the casting of Gaspard, while he is an incredibly disturbing looking actor his French accent is at times very difficult to translate, which resulted in quite large sections where I did not really understand what was going on. I found that despite the annoyances it caused it was better to watch the movie with the subtitles on so I could understand what he was saying. Another annoying factor is as I guess a bit of a perfectionist from some angles how Hannibal lost his accent, because by the Red Dagon, Hannibal had lost all essence of an accent sounding perfectly British. I’m sure anyone that spent most of there formative years speaking in a different language will agree it’s difficult to just turn off an accent completely. The story itself was of reasonable pace, but as I touched on just a little bit too long. Some of the casting jars a little especially the stylized Nazi crew that committed the act, all popular faces in British comedy which I found quite difficult to take seriously. While I had seen Rhys Ifans play a serious role before and he had convinced me of his evilness less focus was spent on the others, I was like someone put Ben Stiller in for 30 seconds to play an evil character, this simply does not work.
The production values cannot be scorned at, providing some of the most impressive war scenes I have seen ever. And when it comes to combat as Hannibal picks off his prey rather like the scene with the Butcher this is all fantastically well choreographed. The set locations are positively stunning and the set designs are sumptuous. If you accept the abomination that is Red Dragon in any way as part of the Hannibal stories, then you must accept Hannibal Rising. At least it’s a completely different piece of the puzzle that is essential for fans of the other movies to complete the bigger picture.
Special Features • Trailer – The brief trailer that we were welcomed with late last year, when to most of the viewing population this movie came as quite a surprise.
• Making Of – I nice look at the making of the movie which includes brief interviews with cast and crew as well as some great special effects scenes.
• Deleted Scenes – A few pointless additional extras that was felt unwise to leave in the movie, and I’m pleased to say this was a very wise decision indeed.
• Audio Commentary with Peter Webber & Martha De Laurentiis – A often very blunt and to the point commentary, there are few laughs here but what they lack in humour they make up for in technical knowledge. Its great to hear with passion how some scenes were put together and the decision on whether to include the familiar mouth guard that Hannibal fans will be familiar with. Also the two point out issues that they were less than happy with, slight goofs if you will.
The DVD is available from 25th of June. If you purchase this DVD from play.com you will receive some stylish art cards to promote the movie. The DVD retails through play at £12.99.
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11.06.2007 20:00
Very good review, but still not sure whether to rent it or not! Cheers
06.06.2007 15:27
Good review.
02.06.2007 12:25
Great review! I saw Hannibal Rising at the cinema... quite liked it too ; )