If Hollywood is to be believed (and usually it's not) all good movie monsters have a beginning so it only makes sense from a franchise perspective if not an artistic one that the origin of Hannibal Lecter would one day be made into a film. Based on the book of the same name by Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising is a reasonably well written and well made film that takes a lot of the mystery and therefore a lot of the eeriness out of the character, therefore reducing him to little more than a classier Freddy Kruger.

The film begins in 1940s Lithuania where a young Hannibal Lecter (Aaran Thomas) and his sister Mischa (Helena-Lia Tachovska) live a very comfortable life. When the Second World War wreaks havoc on the area they call home, the two kids, along with their parents (Richard Leaf and Ingeborga Dapkunaite), have to leave their castle and hide out in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Soon enough, the parents are killed off, the victims of war, and Hannibal and Mischa are left to take care of themselves. To make matters worse, some local thugs take over the cabin where the two kids are hanging out. Soon they run out of food, and Mischa winds up on the menu.

Fast forward a few years and Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel - who looks nothing like Anthony Hopkins and who is therefore an odd casting choice), now a teenager, lives in the castle that was once his home but which is now under Soviet control and serving as a makeshift orphanage. He escapes from the castle and heads to France, hoping that his late uncle's wife will take him in. She does, and she educates him about the finger things in life. Hannibal grows up, works his way through medical school and slowly but surely plots revenge on the men who ate poor little Mischa many years ago.

First things first - Hannibal Rising looks really good. It's a slick and polished production that has great set design and makes use of some exotic locations to ensure that even when the story is puttering around, at least the visuals are cool. Sadly, there's so much of the aforementioned puttering around that it's hard to care. The film succeeds only in sucking all of the life out of what was once a really interesting movie villain. The blame for this falls not on the cast so much or even on the director but primarily on the script and even then you can see where some interesting ideas are trying to escape. Sadly, it just doesn't click. It all feels forced, like a cash in on the name recognition that Anthony Hopkins brought to the roll though without his considerable screen presence or charisma. The end result is a 'dumbed down' origin story that feels rushed, poorly thought out, and completely half assed. Hannibal is turned into a sympathetic character here, and he has the evil sucked right out of him.

Ulliel isn't given much to work with here. He's not horrible in the part despite the lack of resemblance but all he's really required to do here is look intense or pissed off. Hopkins turned the character into an extension of himself to a certain degree and he gave Lecter personality - none of that personality carries over to this picture. The script is just flat and as such, the performances suffer even if on a technical level no one single actor or actress stands out as bad. The only interesting part of the story is how we are shown parallels between Lecter and Agent Starling, though these are not particularly subtle and therefore, like the rest of the film, come off as forced.

Ultimately, the film looks good. There are some interesting ideas here and the pacing is fine - but the story just doesn't work and when that's the case and you've got a few decent movies behind you that you're trying to live up to, it's quite simply a recipe for little more than an extremely mediocre cash in on a successful franchise.

Video:

Hannibal Rising hits DVD in a very nice 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that presents the film in its proper aspect ratio. Though this isn't the most colorful film ever made (in fact it's fairly dark), the transfer handles the hues well. Black levels stay pretty solid and while there are some scenes that exhibit some really minor compression artifacts, print damage is never an issue and edge enhancement is held in check. There's a bit of aliasing and a couple of scenes are a little bit soft but aside from those brief occurrences the picture is pretty detailed with good sharpness and little to complain about.