Just perfect...

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Talking to a friend about what movies she had recently seen,I was intrigued to learn that she had seen "All 3" Lecter movies for the first time. Finding out that she had a box set that did not contain this or the original Manhunter,I was pleased to find one of the films at CEX a few days later,which led to me getting ready to see Hannibal rise.View on the film:Serving up the killing of Hannibal's parents with an over the top Rube Goldberg-style coincidence, director Peter Webber & cinematographer Ben Davis take psychological menace off the menu to cook up a straight-up gorefest. Peeling away to Hannibal's roots,Webber gives the European locations an elegant frosty appearance for the start-point of Hannibal's gentlemanly manner,which gets torn to shreds by the fantastic lashings of gore, sprayed by practical effects beheadings and samurai sword killings.Forced to write the novel and the screenplay at the same time after producer Dino De Laurentiis threatened to bring a hack in to do an origin story, (Mmm...Perhaps not the best way to help someone come up with a good plot Dino.) the screenplay by Thomas Harris shoves atmospheric horror to a side dish,and instead goes for a revenge tale (best served cold!) Sticking Hannibal with flashbacks to his family killers, Harris comes up with a grisly kill list,the episodic outline of which allows for a constant stream of splatter to flow. Faced with Dominic West randomly dropping his French accent as Inspector Popil, Gaspard Ulliel rises above the schlock on show to reflect the pristine, emotionally detached of Hannibal.A Craptastic 7/10.

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.

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

Yes, it does not have the vibe "The Silence of the Lambs" had, yes it is bloody and brutal, but that is the whole point, it doesn't need to be insanely complex or psychologically thrilling, this movie is meant to be completely different, this is what everybody was always curious about. We all loved Lecter and his mysterious presence, but for all these years nobody knew how he began his cruel ways, in this movie everything unfolds and it really adds to the franchise. So what that it is bloody? From what we have heard in previous films all of them would have needed to be as bloody as this one, since Lecter is considered to be an incredibly sick serial killer, who also, appears to be a cannibal and that is exactly what is showed here. In my opinion Gaspard Ulliel did an awesome job as Hannibal Lecter, he had the vibe of the older version of Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins, of course. This is a decent way to revitalize the franchise, so we are not out of hopes for seeing a sequel to 2001's "Hannibal", Lecter films are not quick to come out and are all in a strange order as we know, so this lays the ground for a new film, maybe in 2020? Who knows.Overall it is very entertaining, shows us what people were eager to know about Hannibal Lecter, his roots, reasons, etcetera. Delivers suspense for sure, isn't just a blatant killer movie, has decent acting. The only weakness in my opinion was how they decided to incorporate different countries here, but everybody seems to speak English fluently, even in 1952 Russia :D I know it sounds funny, but nonetheless, it is worth watching, that is the only notable flaw.