Review: A decent addition to the Hannibal lore

"Hannibal Rising," the latest movie in the Hannibal series, traces Hannibal's hunger for human flesh back to the disturbing events of his youth. The movie begins in Lithuania at the time of the German's retreat from the Russians in World War II on the eastern front. Hannibal's (Gaspard Ulliel) parents were killed trying to flee the fighting and young Hannibal was left alone with his sister in a cabin in the woods. A group of renegade soldiers entered the cabin and after a few days without food, the soldiers ate Hannibal's sister, Mischa. Hannibal survived and was sent to a soviet orphanage. He fled to Paris to find his uncle, but instead, found Lady Murasaki (Gong Li), his uncle's Japanese widow who taught him how to defend himself and use a Samurai sword. The tragic events that took his family haunted Hannibal in his sleep and slowly, the audience learned through flashbacks how the soldiers killed his sister. This is the first Hannibal movie that was actually written by Thomas Harris, who wrote all of the novels. This is the first movie in the series that gives the audience a chance to see Hannibal as a human capable of compassion, and capable of making mistakes, since this is the story of what made him into a monster. The film holds the attention of the audience with nonstop suspense, but there are a few key moments that are rushed through that could have explored the moral struggle between Hannibal's humanity and the monster he became. The script could have spent more time on the romance between Hannibal and Lady Murasaki to show the audience how she acts as his conscious urging him to stop killing. Instead, there is only one quick scene where they kiss. From the time Hannibal returns to the cabin to give his sister a proper burial to the end of the movie, Inspector Popil's words ring true when he said the real Hannibal was lost out in the snow when he saw the soldiers eat his sister all that is left is a monster. This is the second feature film for director Peter Weber and the second English language film for Ulliel, the French actor with the lofty task of following Anthony Hopkins. Weber does a brilliant job of creating the setting for each scene and slowing down the action to make every crime as disturbing and gory as possible. While the older Hannibal loved witty conversation with Clarice, young Hannibal rarely says more then five words at a time. Instead, he scares the audience with his determination to kill and takes pleasure from the taste of his victim's blood. West and Li do a superb job of portraying the only characters in the movie with a conscious. Rhys Ifans, who plays Grutas the leader of the soldiers, captures all the qualities of an evil man with no regrets for feeding his hunger. So if you hunger to know what made Hannibal become such a cannibal in the first place, this is the movie to see. If you can't stomach a Hannibal movie without Anthony Hopkins then go rent "Silence of the Lambs."

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