by Mary Anne

Created on: March 07, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

I found Hannibal Rising to be a huge disappointment both as a book and as a movie.

First, let's discuss the book. And before we get started, I am going to say that I am assuming you have read the previous books (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon) as well as seen the movies. The previous books were phenomenal, especially Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Hannibal Lector plays a significantly smaller role in Red Dragon, but it is an excellent book as well. Hannibal Rising was no where near the same caliber as these previous books. The psychology and intricacy of the previous books was enchanting. They created this character, Hannibal Lector, who was such a "bad" character, but still a fascinating character that the reader could not help but root for. The book Hannibal had already covered much of what was written in Hannibal Rising. So, in my mind, Hannibal Rising did not bring much that was "new" to the table. While it chronicled, in more detail, his initial kills, and did go into more detail about his motivation and creation, I never felt as though this book added anything necessary to what was already created in Hannibal.

When I initially heard of Hannibal Rising, I expected it to chronicle the murders that brought Hannibal into custody in the US before he meets Clarise. In fact, as I read the book, I continued to expect that. It wasn't until I was about three quarters of the way through before I realized that wasn't going to happen. This realization was very disappointing to me. I do not understand why Thomas Harris felt the need to write Hannibal Rising at all.

Now I would like to move on to my thoughts about the movie. I had rather high expectations for the movie. I felt that the book had been written in order to make the movie and would translate well into a feature film, unlike Hannibal. Unfortunately, I continued to be disappointed. The movie left out many of the scenes that helped humanize Hannibal. One of the most important traits of Hannibal Lector is his sense of fairness and justice. He will not put up with any type of bullying, rudeness, or just plain meanness. These scenes which would have added quite a bit of poignancy to the movie were eliminated. Also, in the book, Hannibal's uncle finds him in the orphanage and brings Hannibal into his home. In the movie, Hannibal escapes the orphanage to look for his uncle, only to find that his uncle has passed away. Fortunately for Hannibal, his uncle's widow takes him under her wing. I do not understand the purpose for this change other than eliminating a character and thus an actor who would need to be paid. But I felt that in the book, Hannibal's relationship with his uncle, who does pass away shortly after finding Hannibal, is important to Hannibal. He creates a sense of family for Hannibal, and a male role model for Hannibal to look up to.

Moving away from what was eliminated from the book in the movie, I would like to discuss one of the other major problems I had with the movie. That is the problem of casting. The actor who was cast as young Hannibal was never believable for me. This is a unique casting problem created in this series - to find a actor to portray a much younger version of a character that is already very well established. While I thought that the actor did an excellent job, I did not feel he looked at all like someone who would age into the Hannibal we are familiar with. His physical attributes such as height and build, just aren't right. And that took a lot away from the movie for me.

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