Over twenty years after “Hannibal the Cannibal” made his film debut in MANHUNTER (1986), the Dr. Lecter saga peters out with this misguided sequel. The absolutely insurmountable problem is that the psychiatric serial killer was most intriguing and frightening as an inexplicable enigma - a walking, talking question mark regarding the nature of evil: Why would someone do this? Answering that question is a bit like a magician revealing the trick behind his magical illusion: the explanation is never as interesting as the mystery, which is thoroughly destroyed in the process.

Building upon a flashback introduced in the novel HANNIBAL (which was abandoned in the film adaptation), HANNIBAL RISING posits that as a boy, Hannibal Lecter saw his sister eaten by soldiers in Lithuania at the end of World War II. It’s a pretty horrible thought but goes nowhere toward explaining how Lecter himself became a cannibal serial killer, so the new storyline - set mostly with Lecter (Gaspard Uliel) as a young medical student - portrays his bloody quest for revenge in the aftermath of the war. The storyline’s sick little joke is that (like HANNIBAL) it will ask you to identify with Lecter as a kind of anti-hero, because his opponents are even worse than he is. Continue Reading »

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Despite an advertising campaign that suggested THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE (e.g., some teenagers discover a mystical, magical land, where they become heroes), this adaptation of Katherine Paterson’s book emerges as something along the lines a kindlier, gentler American version of PAN’S LABYRINTH. It’s about two junior high school kids who don’t quite fit in; to escape the travails of the schoolyard (including an eighth grade girl who charges younger kids a dollar to get into the rest room), they find an uninhabited area of the nearby woods, where they imagine a magical kingdom called Terabithia. This escape from the pressures of real life leads not only to friendship and fun but also to a wiser understanding of the real world.

The fantasy excursions are relatively minimal, which is a good thing, because the computer-generated special effects (which bring to life walking trees and turn squirrels into the fantasy equivalent of vicious attack dogs) are one of the film’s weakest elements. The movie is on surer footing when the fantastic is left to the imagination or suggested through shadows and sounds. Continue Reading »

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