« A woman in trouble: Inland Empire | Main | Found in the Crowd »
February 27, 2007
Cannibalism doesn't taste good
Let us all give a round of applause to both Peter Webber for his fantastic directing and Thomas Harris for his brilliant writing in Hannibal Rising.
Without a doubt, if these two great minds of our time had not joined forces, the tragedy the world would have to face of not having this prequel would be earth-shaking. Where would we be without prequels?
How would we know of characters' histories without such classics as Star Wars I, II and III? Or Dumb and Dumberer?In a pit of unenlightened sadness, that’s where.
Yes, Hannibal Rising, the long-coming-prequel-that-no-one-had-been-eagerly-anticipating-but-thought-it-might-be-interesting-when-they-heard-it-was-coming, was everything one hopes for in a prequel.
It has action, adventure, suspense, drama (melodrama perhaps, but we take what we can get), quippy-one liners, and maybe, just maybe, a little hint at a love interest.
Too bad then, that anti-hero Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) is not a character you could fall in love with or even learn to like. Instead of seeing the chilling prototype of a suave and sadistic serial killer, we get to watch nearly two hours of a self absorbed, Euro-brat who only looks about as intimidating as Draco Malfoy.
Hiding in the woods with his little sister (whom he would die for) is one thing, but samurai training? Samurai training by a mysterious exotic Asian lady love interest?
Aside from the total impossibility, it is such a dumb idea that no amount of clever wordplay could ever begin to satisfy me as a sufficient description of how upset such a dumb plot device makes me. Did I mention that, on top of all this, our macabre coming of age story’s anti-hero looks like Draco Malfoy in the troughs of puberty?
Is there anyway to drive home the point that, with the singular exception of wartime soldiers, there is not a likeable thing about this film.
They don’t even speak in different languages, just English with degrees of varying accents which only succeed at sounding non-American.
Simply put, this movie can best be compared to a show dog. Nice to look at for maybe a few minutes because everyone likes puppies, but dumb as post.
What else can be said? Silence of the Lambs was good, Hannibal was all right and Red Dragon wasn’t bad, so what is left?
Despite the extreme desire to enjoy it, there are just too many things that make this movie unbearable.
Come Friday night, if you’re really hankering for a prequel, go watch 007: Casino Royale, because that was still a great movie even if it had some rough edges-unlike this piece of junk.
Posted by dwright at February 27, 2007 08:34 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)