Hannibal Rising 2007

Phil Vettel, Chicago Tribune: Lecter is presented as a soul-dead vigilante who reserves his carnage for the truly deserving; that's a long way from the Lecter of Silence of the Lambs who kills and tortures innocent and guilty alike. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: Watching the earnest but under-qualified Ulliel perpetrate Hannibal's initial grisly slayings is like going back in time to hear the screeches of a violin virtuoso's incipient swipes on the strings the first time he picks up the instrument. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Hannibal Rising is basically a Steven Seagal vigilante movie with a hero who eats the people he kills. At least it's ecofriendly. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: In the finest tradition of TV newsmagazines, Hannibal Lecter's penchant for serial murder turns out to be the result of a traumatic childhood. Read more

Mark Rahner, Seattle Times: If they were going to show how he got to be the brilliant, charming, exquisitely cultured, uh, vicious cannibal psychopath -- couldn't they have come up with something more interesting? Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: The movie succeeds on some level, but the series has definitely begun to eat its own with Hannibal Rising. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Formerly masterful novelist Thomas Harris continues to pimp out the serial-killing cannibal he (and Anthony Hopkins) made famous. Read more

Sam Adams, Los Angeles Times: Lacking the wit to qualify as a sick joke, the ongoing saga of Hannibal Lecter has become the Grand Guignol equivalent of a shaggy-dog story. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Harris, who adapted the screenplay, and director Peter Webber are faithful to his book. Strong production values, a lush score and scenic locations work seal the deal. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Even more so than with the other Lecter movies, this prequel you should plan on seeing after you've eaten dinner. Better yet, skip the movie altogether and have dessert. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: There's a certain stylishness from director Peter Webber (Girl With a Pearl Earring), but not enough good acting to make it stick. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Director Peter Webber delivers all this with a painfully straight face, and the result is actually less interesting than your average horror movie of the week. Read more

Entertainment Weekly: Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: He's just another cheap icon, set not to haunt our worst nightmares, but the cash-cow dreams of a studio looking for a franchise player. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: This Hannibal is a stick-in-the-mud altogether lacking in the wit, gourmet appetites and romantic flair required of any surrogate for Sir Anthony Hopkins. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: In Hannibal Rising, the bad Dr. Lecter finally enters the pantheon of movie monsters for real: Like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, he, too, now has a sequel that's been made strictly for the sake of a buck. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Rationalize Lecter's brand of pure, irrational evil and you take all the fun out of it. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The great thing about monsters is that they glide noiselessly from nightmare straight into myth, fully formed and eternally mysterious. To know what made them is to explain them. And once you explain anything, you begin to lose your fear of it. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: I can't name an actor who could have made young Lecter as interesting as the older one, but Ulliel does not come close. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: There is no action-movie cliche too rusty to be wheeled forth. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Rising is a movie that solves a mystery no one should want solved, with more grisly crimes that spare us no detail, held together by an actor who is no Anthony Hopkins. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Critical miscalculations at every turn have taken this latest (and hopefully last) Hannibal movie beyond the realm of camp and into that special hell reserved for only the most rancid of sequels. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: You can argue that prequels to great films simply shouldn't be made. But when they are, this is the right way to do it. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: What this nasty, brutish movie left me feeling was ashamed to be American. First of all: As a folk archetype, a supervillain for our times, this is the best we can come up with? A vaguely Eurotrash schoolboy who eats people's cheeks? Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Misha Davenport, Chicago Sun-Times: Filmdom's greatest villain Hannibal Lecter has been both defanged and declawed. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: As played by French actor Gaspard Ulliel, Hannibal is a playing-card joker: Ulliel performs every scene with the same dimpled smirk, which looks less like an expression than a plastic-surgery mistake. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Tilting his elegantly aquiline features downward while hoisting one eyebrow over a dark orb, curling his lips with Grinchian deliberation, he seems to be determined to kill people on the strength of his cologne alone. Read more

Ben Walters, Time Out: Lecter is all relish, which is fine for a side dish but unsatisfying in a main. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Thomas Harris is now hoodwinked by his creation's faux pedigree. He's scripted him a ridiculously Eurotrashy upbringing, one so silly, it'll remind you of Dr. Evil's memory-tripping: "Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons..." Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: A well-produced but slow-moving thriller that never quite roars to life. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Hannibal is a pure killing machine, and one never senses a struggle in him between the dark and the light. Read more