Hannibal RisingMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 35 out of 100 Generally unfavorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub

    Hannibal Rising isn't a classic, but it's entertaining and a surprisingly fitting addition to the franchise. Read full review

  • 63
    New York Daily News | Jack Mathews

    This strikes me as the final nail in the franchise's coffin. 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 full review

  • 50
    Variety | Dennis Harvey

    This upmarket slasher is a well-produced but slow-moving thriller that never quite roars to life. Read full review

  • 50
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Steven Rea

    What Hannibal Rising is, mostly, is a hoot. Read full review

  • 40
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    The movie streamlines much of Harris's book. It's a shame, because it results in the movie's fundamental flaw -- the one-dimensionality of Hannibal. Read full review

  • 38
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    For better and worse, the movie is more attractive and competently assembled than its schlock peers. That's refreshing, but it hardly excuses the appalling lack of suspense, intermittent tastelessness, or shockingly low camp quotient. Read full review

  • 30
    Los Angeles Times |

    Bad as Harris' Hannibal Rising screenplay (his first) is, at least it's an improvement on his dreadful book, streamlining its convoluted action and discarding large chunks of unspeakable dialogue. Read full review

  • 25
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Hannibal Rising reduces this great creature of the pop imagination to a Eurotrash Boy Scout throwing a homicidal snit fit. Read full review

  • 20
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    It's all quite a mess, with awkward performances, worse dialogue and a painfully protracted running time conspiring against any chance of enjoyment, even in a so-bad-it's-good guilty pleasure way. Read full review

  • 10
    The New York Times | Jeannette Catsoulis

    Silly, slack and unforgivably tedious, Thomas Harris's screenplay is padded with interminable flashbacks and a bombastic score that telegraphs every emotion Hannibal represses. And there are a lot of them. Read full review

View more reviews for Hannibal Rising on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ Bloody prequel traces serial killer's origins.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this bloody Silence of the Lambs prequel isn't for kids. Since it's about the "birth" of famously evil character Hannibal the Cannibal, it's no surprise that it's all about brutality (usually involving swords and knives) and cannibalism. Other violent scenes include wartime shootings and explosions, stabbings, decapitations (heads are prominently displayed and bloody), and a drowning (a man is locked in a hospital corpse tank). Villains also drink, smoke cigarettes, and abuse women (bruises on one victim). A few uses of "f--k," plus rude sexual slang.
  • Families can talk about the effects of trauma on children. How is the monster that Hannibal becomes produced by seeing his sister eaten? How is Hannibal sympathetic as a child? Why can't he satiate his desire for bloody vengeance? How does this movie explain or otherwise reshape the Hannibal the Cannibal story as you know it so far? Is Hannibal as effective a character when he's not being played by Anthony Hopkins? Would you consider this a horror film or a thriller? Why?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Trauma during WWII produces Hannibal the Cannibal; his fierce Trauma during WWII produces Hannibal the Cannibal; his fierce fixation on vengeance leads to serial murder and decapitation; though he understands he is "wrong," he persists.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Brutal violence and bloody results. Wartime explosions, shooting, fires. Children witness their mother's fatal injury in an explosion, and their father is shot dead in front of them. An SS officer is shot in the head; wolves eat dead parents; Grutas eats a bird, showing his bloody mouth; Grutas threatens children with hatchet; villains eat little sister (off-screen, but fragmented memory repeats throughout, with screams and disturbing images); stabbings with forks, knives, swords; martial arts with poles; bloody wound stitched in close-up; several decapitations; repeated references to losing families in war; villain is squeezed to death by rope (blood splats on Hannibal's face, and he tastes it); Hannibal drowns a man; Grutas shoots Hannibal and another character; fight includes burning hand on stovetop; head is stabbed from chin through the top (seen from back); man squished between boat and dock (end is off-screen); Hannibal stabs villain's legs repeatedly, carves "M" in his chest, then eats his cheeks.
  • sex false3 Sex: Sexual attraction between Hannibal and his aunt by marriage (brief, passionate kiss between them); verbal references to Lady Murasaki's "p--y" Grutas keeps a sex slave and forces her to bathe him in a tub; he appears out of the tub with a towel around his waist; Grutas licks Lady Murasaki's face, then puts his finger near her crotch and straddles her on a chair (very ugly threat of rape).
  • language false3 Language: "F--k," "hell," "bitch," and sexual slang ("p--y," "d--k"). Disparagement of a Jew.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Hennessey Cognac sign.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Characters smoke cigarettes frequently; villains (including Hannibal) drink liquor and wine.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

1.0

Dave White Profile See Dave White's Profile

He is shirtless more than once. It's like, 'Hey, kids, Hannibal is sexy!' Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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