Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends,
Andy Nelson: our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Hannibal Rising is over. I thought you would be bigger. I put your face on every bully I've ever hurt.
Trailer: Is your name Hannibal Lecter? Do you recall the events that led to your family's murder? The little boy died out in that snow. He was raised in a work camp.
Let's hear you scream, little master. What
he is now, there's no word for it. Do you have any guilty knowledge of the death of Paul Momoone?
Guilty knowledge. I found them. The men who killed my family.
He was killed in the woods where your family died. His face had been eaten.
Now tell me, inspector, you lost family in the war. Yes. Did you catch who did it? No. Then we are both suspects.
Pete Wright: Mm-mm. This movie. Andy, I've been mad about this movie for about four weeks.
Andy Nelson: This is what you get. This is, I guess, penance will just say for deciding to watch all of the movies from the series in one weekend, and you just plowed through the lot, and you've been sitting on this one for quite a long time. Quite a quite a long time. Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I've been simmering on it. Sitting is is gentle. Simmering, stewing. What did you what I mean, how you loved it.
Right?
Andy Nelson: Oh, my favorite of the bunch.
Pete Wright: Mhmm. This is the one I haven't read. I'd I'd never read the book. Hadn't seen the movie. This was the first time.
Did not know what to expect. And now I've got it. And I it's one of the movies I wish I had not watched because it just it fundamentally breaks so much of what I like about Hannibal Lecter, the character, and I think this movie had and the book had the wrong idea had the wrong idea, around what it purports to do to unveil and decrypt and decode the origin story of Hannibal Lecter.
Andy Nelson: Well, I wanna talk about that a little bit because you enjoy the book Hannibal quite a bit. Mhmm. And as memory serves, that book is where he started introducing more of Hannibal's backstory. As far as his youth, his survival with his sister, and the the people who ate her and kind of introduced him to the fantastic world of cannibalism and all that Spoiler. Fun stuff.
It's that's kind of it had already been set up, let's just say. Yes. So had he already overstepped by creating all of that in that story before he even got to this story?
Pete Wright: Yeah. No. I so here's the here's the issue. In this story, I actually think the opening bit of Misha is probably okay. Right?
It's it it had it been a prologue in another movie, maybe it would have been fine. Right? The fact that the we expanded it to this sort of more of a of a wholehearted revenge story is is what is is where things go wrong. I did not object as much to the book stuff in Hannibal because so much more of Hannibal was in Florence. Right?
It gave me I think I think he skirted the right balance with with a lot of those elements. I think this movie, yeah, this movie, I I think, breaks that trust in the the sort of careful balance. I I wrote my review, and I I called it, like, a careful detente between the the past and our our present and what we know of this character. Because the character to me is the Joker. It is this character where evil exists as something to respond to.
Like, everything that I've I've learned about the character so far is that he exists because of nature, because that's who he is. And what this movie sets out to do is say, and the story sets out to do is he exists because of nurture. He was taught to be this. And I think where the book gets it better, the tone of the book, at least my read on it, is that he responded the way he did to Misha because that's who he was in the first place. And what this movie depicts is he was trained, he was nurtured to be this character, and also the mask.
Andy Nelson: Don't get me started on the mask.
Pete Wright: Is it too soon? We'll have
Pete Wright: to talk we'll have to talk about segment coming about the mask.
Andy Nelson: I I think that's a big part of it is okay. So it's it's an interesting progression of the Hannibal Lecter character that we've had. Right? From Manhunter where he is, I would say, the smallest percent starring Hannibal Lecter in a film. And because of that also ends up being much more mysterious and plotting and straightforward.
Like, there's there is a nice element to the way that we end up having Lecter as performed by Brian Cox in Manhunter. And then we jump into the Anthony Hopkins trilogy essentially, where we kind of get to see him, tackling all of the different stories. In Silence of the Lambs, he's a creepy character. He's very scary. He's a killer.
We see him, you know, take down several cops and, you know, do some gruesome things as far as like putting one person's face onto his own so that he can escape. Like, is legit scary in Silence of the Lambs, but there is this compelling draw to him in the way that he is drawn to Clarisse Starling. And we're getting this sense that, okay, there is definitely a dark character here, but I'm drawn to him because he's a fascinating personality. And the way that Clarisse ends up kind of playing those games with him, come together to kind of craft a magnificent story. Then I think, you know, my complaints about Hannibal is it felt like Thomas Harris latched on to the wrong ideas of the success of silence of the lambs and decided, let's make it a Clarisse and Hannibal romance film as they kind of come together and and, you know, go off and and end up together essentially by the end of the film.
Yes. We get Hannibal trying to survive on his own in disguise in Florence, and that's a great part of the story. We also get this revenge plot by Mason Verger, who is had been one of Hannibal's patients convinced to kind of cut his own face off and now is after Lecter for revenge. So there's this revenge story on Lecter. And this is the one where I think Anthony Hopkins started recognizing that he's the protagonist of the book of and and of the film, and audiences are no longer seeing him as a cannibalistic serial killer, a villain, but they're seeing him as a dark antihero.
Like, that's essentially what we get in that story. Sympathetic. He's sympathetic. We like this guy, and we like that he's eating Ray Liotta's character's brains. It's a strange twist on this character, and and Anthony Hopkins recognized that and rightfully wanted to make the character darker again when he had his chance to do the remake red dragon.
And so we get a little bit of a darker version of Lecter. Again, there's not much of him in that story, but I I would say at least he didn't feel as sympathetic. You know? I mean, he still is very congenial and has all those far too many conversations with Will Graham over the course of the story. But it does feel like, okay.
I mean, I I think the beginning of it definitely kind of paints that picture. This is a guy who is a fan of the orchestra, doesn't like the fact that the flautist keeps flubbing his notes, and kills him, and then feeds him to the board. Apparently, not the first time that he's done this with his victims, where he feeds, you know, human, remains to like his meal made up of these people to the board when they come over for this big dinner that he has. And you're getting a sense, okay, this is a dark messed up character. And then we'll talk about the reasons that Harris decided to tell this story, but he decides, let's go back to his childhood and explore some of the elements that I added in Hannibal.
And, yeah, he gives us this, like, this sympathetic character who all of his the sense of him being an actual serial killer, somebody who not just is killing people, but also cooking them and eating them. Like, we're getting this backstory of him that makes him like somebody that we're they're rooting for. And it just like, is this the right direction to be taking with this character? I mean, I'm all for backstories of of killers and everything, but I just feel like I don't feel like the story that he ended up crafting is the right one. It just feels like why why is this the version of Hannibal Lecter that we're getting?
Because now it's like you have to rethink all of those things. It's like, well, yeah, but he was he was somebody who was, you know, his life was ruined and, you know, psychologically, he's been tormented by the Nazis and everything. And you get this story, and it's like, oh, okay. Wait a minute. Wait.
Am I rooting for him now? It's it's a mess.
Pete Wright: It it it is a mess. It's a it's a complete mess, and I think that's the the act of making him sympathetic just made him, you know, a a superhero, a vigilante. Right? He's a vigilante. He's he's doing stuff that the authorities won't or can't, but the authorities are like the Nazis.
Andy Nelson: Well, not once he gets to Paris. Like, that you know?
Pete Wright: Not once he gets to Paris. Yeah. That's that's very, very true. But the the the fact that he is stepping in where authorities can't, making his sociopathy something to celebrate, it it just completely breaks what this character was all about. And and I do think that's objective.
I don't think that's just me liking earlier Hannibal. Right? I think this character was broken in in this movie and why, you know, the TV show ends up being rehabilitative for for the character, I think. But I haven't watched enough of it to know, do we have the same kind of sympathies with that Hannibal as we do here? Here, he's he's a good guy.
He's a good guy. We're rooting for the good guy.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. And they do try to paint elements of the story to make people recognize, oh, he shouldn't be doing these things. Like, Lady Murasaki is seeing things in him that she's like, oh, well, okay. He's killing these people. I kind of am supporting it because of things that that they've done to our family, but I'm also recognizing that you're going too far, you know, like
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: We're seeing that, but it's never portrayed completely as a problem. And it that's that's a big problem.
Pete Wright: Name the Avengers, the, like, Marvel Avengers who do this kind of stuff. Right? We're already celebrating Deadpool and Daredevil. And, like, these are these are vengeance characters that we that we have in the MCU. That's what Hannibal is sort of it takes as kind of a tonal reference to me.
Like, we're creating a superhero. We're creating a superhero.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. That seems to be what they're going for. And, you know, to the point where we get some strange character, I mean, some of it is the worst part of prequels, and that is giving us these the setups for, oh, okay. This was where Hannibal learned to cook so well. You know, like, these sorts of things that you always have to get in in prequels.
It's, you know, and and they're such eye rolling things like watching Han get the dice for the Millennium Falcon, like things like that. You're like, you don't need to show that for me to understand that I'm seeing the earlier part of this story. And we're getting that with all of this with with Hannibal. Right? Like, his medical training, his, weirdly, swordplay, which I guess was something that we never have seen in any of the films.
But now we know, aside from everything else, he's also a master swordsman. I guess that's why he's so good with the knife. I don't know. Yeah. But but that's another element that we get all of the the setup, the the required setup for his character beats throughout the film.
And I guess that goes to, and we just have to get out of the way, the ridiculousness of the mask. As if that is a character element in Hannibal that is a requirement for who he is. Because we have this, you know, his his uncle had married lady Murasaki, and his uncle is also, deceased. In in the house, there's a samurai warrior outfit along with all sorts of these interesting different Japanese masks and everything. One of which weirdly looks like the mask that Hannibal has been, had put on his face a number of times in Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon.
I don't think he wears one in Hannibal, unless I'm forgetting. Maybe he does when Mason Berger has caught him. Anyway Yeah. It's a thing that they they've decided, well, we've got to put Hannibal in a mask because it's creepy and the fans love it. And so here we get him putting on this mask that is just like a samurai sort of mask, but it also happens to be designed in the the what we know as kind of the Lecter style.
It's so ridiculous. It's a prop with
Pete Wright: a god complex. Right? Like, it's just like the prop this should have been called Hannibal rising, the story of the mask. Like, there's just it it's it's a movie that wants us to care so much about the mask, which ultimately and I I wonder if anybody would think in making this movie, in writing the story, you know, it it'll be a wonderful coincidence. It's gonna be a coincidence because, you know, that's the style of the masks that were worn.
And, you know, I know because I play a lot of assassin's creed shadow, and that's that's what they they wear. And it's a it's a bit it's a level up kind of a bit that you can get. And I wonder if at any point people thought, like, maybe we can get away with this because we have, you know, Murasaki in here, and it's gonna be a cultural tie in. And won't that be interesting because this is his superhero. He's a superhero, and superheroes, a lot of them do wear masks.
I wonder. This is me being as generous as I possibly can. And then I have to turn around and slap myself in the face because the whole thing that makes Hannibal terrifying is that when he is at his worst, he's not wearing a mask. There is no ideological purpose for him to wear a mask at all in this movie. His the terror that comes from him is because he is unafraid to do the worst things without obscuring his identity at all.
And this movie breaks that too.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I think that's a a great point. The idea of this this element that they're trying to create that then they never use again. It's only there just so we have the chance to see it. And it was like, that's not only are you going to introduce it as if it's some core element of Hannibal's being, but then you're going to that just completely disregard its use, and and it's gonna disappear from the film for the rest of the time.
It just it made no sense. It was so so dumb. Some of
Pete Wright: it is is the danger of the prequel. Like, if you were to if this were the first movie, right, if this were the movie if the movies if we just erase all of Hannibal Lecter history and we start with Hannibal rising, and it's the story of this kid who becomes a serial killer because of vengeance and trauma and all of the things that he's he's dealing with as a as a child, his the, like, war trauma and survivor guilt, and he ate his own sister. And then he had the mask, and we were first introduced to the mask by way of lady Murasaki. And then we get to Red Dragon, silence of lamps where the mask comes back, would we
Andy Nelson: have been more gracious? I don't know if we could have been more gracious for those elements. Like, it would have been hard no matter how you slice it. I have a hard time seeing how you could be more gracious with that just because of the fact that it exists. And every time it's always been portrayed has always been as a tool that law enforcement uses to protect themselves from somebody who eats people.
Right. Right. Yeah. It's it's it's punishment. You put him in this so that he can't get you.
And yet here, suddenly, it's now shifted, and now it's like, nope, not in this film. In this film, it's a tool that he's gonna wear because it looks cool. Like, it just it it really makes no sense. It's like the most illogical element of this story, which has a lot of problems.
Pete Wright: It is the most illogical element of the story.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. And, you know, it's this definitely was a period. I'm just trying to think, like, metatextual as far as why this film and the book, which, you know, were basically kind of created at the same time. And we didn't even mention Thomas Harris wrote the screenplay for this. It was this period post 09/11 where if you look at stories, there was a lot there's an increased focus on trauma, psychological scars, loss, violence.
Like, you have a lot of these different types of stories that are becoming popular. And it also is the rise of origin stories. Like, we're seeing, like, going back to things even even, like, completely not horror, but like Batman Begins, Casino Royale both came out right around this time. Antiheroes were on the rise. Walter White and Dexter, both were examples in TV who people were really enjoying.
And also, think in horror films, you are seeing a lot more backstory development. And so with all of these things, you can see why, De Laurentiis and Thomas Harris kind of felt like they needed to give this big character more story. They had to figure out, like, what else can we do to expand this story so that audiences get a better handle on who he is? And I just I gotta say, like, I just don't think that Thomas Harris was able to come up with something. And and I I think it I don't know.
For me, I I don't think he was able to come up with something that worked. And I think a lot of that for me is the reasons that he came to actually write this story.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Right. Because, you know, there's a hostage situation.
Andy Nelson: It was absolutely a hostage situation. Yeah. I mean, De Laurentiis, he and his company had the rights to the Lecter character for films. That was really the issue. They they gave up their rights willingly for Silence of the Lambs because Manhunter was such a flop.
And then after Silence of the Lambs was such a hit, they were like, oh, we're gonna just keep doing more and more of this stuff. And yeah. So he was like, we're gonna make another Hannibal movie. And Harris was like, I don't have another thing to do. And he told him in no uncertain terms that we're doing it.
And basically, you need to come up with it, or I'm gonna get somebody else to do it instead because I have the rights. And that's the thing I think that's that's so frustrating. Like, I'm trying to find his actual words. He said, I say to Thomas, if you don't do the prequel, I will do it with someone else. I don't wanna lose the franchise, and the audiences want it.
He said, no. I'm sorry. And I said, I will do it with somebody else. And he said, let me think about it. I will come up with an idea.
And, and Harris, actually, he said he did have con continuation rights to the character and could have done whatever he wanted to. He had a lot of enthusiasm for a movie and it was contagious, I suppose. And that's why he did this. Mhmm. They pushed and pushed and pushed, and they said, we're gonna do a prequel with or without you.
And so he said, okay, fine. Let's do it. And yeah, I mean, I guess he got paid to get it done, but at what cost? I have to say.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I mean, it's it's a it's funny how the the movie is interpretation of the cycle of violence, and I think the script itself is an interpretation of the cycle of intellectual violence that is that is on parade in Hollywood. And I I think this is just this is the movie where where Hannibal Lecter is deflated to nonsense, which is too bad.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's very frustrating. What do you think of the director? Do you know much about Peter Weber who was was hired to direct this film?
Pete Wright: Are you a Weber head?
Andy Nelson: Webhead, Pete. Webhead. Webhead. Oh, wow.
Pete Wright: That was like right there. Know. Was right there. Do you know, I I I like, I'm I saw the girl with the pearl earring.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I love that one.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Right. What happened? I think that's it. I think that's the only movie that I've I've seen.
Andy Nelson: Is that what else has has Weber done? He's a small filmography. He's made seven films from 02/2001 to 02/2019, and I've only seen Girl with a Pearl Earring, which is the one he did right before this one, which I have now unfortunately also seen. He has done some TV, not a lot of stuff. Yeah.
I'm not exactly sure what what he's up to these days, but looks like an interesting filmmaker who certainly is drawn to, like, kind of documentary work and stuff now. So
Pete Wright: I can't fathom how we got from the girl with the pearl earring to Hannibal rising. I think my hunch is the intention was we're gonna create something with a sort of narrative grandiosity of pearl earring in Hannibal, and it's going to be elegant, and it's going to be powerful, and it ended up being something that he wanted to do differently than that. He wanted to change, and so we didn't get the stuff that we enjoyed about the the previous film, and I I think that's too bad. This is where the the IP doesn't align with the with the tonal direction.
Andy Nelson: No. I I it just feels like such a shift. And I don't know if they just went with it because yeah. Because Girl With The Pearl Earring was good. And I don't know.
To me, it seems like the sort of situation where the producers hire a an up and coming director who's made a good low budget film that has gotten some attention, and they hire them to bring them on board to direct something that's much bigger with a much bigger budget. But in a way where they also know that they, the producers, can pretty much control them. It's the Marvel model. It's the you know, you name it. Any of these big franchises, that's how they so often do this.
They bring these people on who they know that they can essentially control. And the so the producers can really kind of manage and get the film that they want. That feels like sadly the case here.
Pete Wright: And that's how we end up with a with an opening brooding origin myth. Right? And the end is a revenge film, and those tones don't interact well together. Once we hit action thriller territory, it feels so weirdly out of context from the little that I know about Peter Weber's choices. And and there were still something.
I mean, he's got the the he's going for this sort of bigness, sort of operatic bigness, largesse in this in this movie. And I think he does well with with use of sound and silence, and he does well when he's going for some weighty moments. And yet it's just overall, like, when you add all this stuff up, it's a melodrama. It's it ends up being, you know, a telenovela.
Andy Nelson: I mean, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, clearly, it's a director who is trying his hand at at and and, you know, I don't I think a lot of these situations, these young directors are brought into these situations probably going, is this what I have to do? Well, I'm going to just do the best I can with it and hope that some people recognize that I was trying to do something a little bigger, a little more grand with it. And I mean, it has its moments. The the look, the tone, the the style.
I mean, there are things in here that I think are interesting.
Pete Wright: I'll tell you, as a standout bit, we have when Hannibal's doing his surgical training and we get the transitions back and forth between, you know, memories of violence, and I thought that was a really cool exercise in, you know, in in his story to move things forward and remind us where he's been. Like, it was just edited really well, editor, the Valeria Bonelli. Some of those things from a straight up kind of cinematic perspective hit me just right.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. And I I think that there are elements. I mean, you know, you're shooting over in in the area around Prague, and you're able to kind of capture some real beautiful countryside and and some just nature in the forest and everything. Like, there are some really stunning shots that we end up, capturing through here. Like the sequence when he captures one of the men who had been involved.
One of the when there were soldiers who had held him and his sister hostage and ended up eating his sister. He's holding him like out in the forest is where he takes him with a rope and everything like that. It's it's beautifully shot. Like that scene is well crafted, well put together. Like, I like the way that it it all plays out.
Like, there we're getting that. Like, there's nothing at fault with the production style of this film. I think that's something that you really see. I definitely remember though that with Girl with the Pearl Earring is, Weber crafted a sense of creating that world where I felt it was real authentic. You could feel kind of the the dirt in that period of I can't remember the story, thirteen hundreds or whenever it was.
Like, you really feel that, and you could feel that here where you're getting a sense of the time and place. It's just the story that he's stuck with having to tell that Thomas Harris wrote, and I think that's that's the difficulty.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Just a last comment on and maybe this this goes to, you know, our dear Gaspard Uliel, r I p, the performance. I think one of the things that gets lost here is we get to see how Hannibal turns into a monster by way of of training, but we don't really get to see his as clearly his intellectual development, I think, in in a way that makes him sophisticated beyond his years. He just is that already. And I almost wonder if that's where the movie and the story could have spent more time, and maybe the book does.
I don't know. Spent more time, you know, showing us his growth as a human being and less time on the revenge story. Like, I'd be more interested in his psychological development than this movie seemed interested in telling me.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I I don't think that it was interested in exploring much more. And it's it you you bring up a point that I I wanted to just emphasize just as far as like, you know, as far as we we're talking about Hannibal and the story about this serial killer as he's learning his craft, learning his trade, starting to figure out I'm gonna eat the rude, like, when he goes after the guy who offends his aunt. And I'm just like, okay, this is we're we're getting all of this set up. But it also plays in exactly the worst way to the trope type of story.
It's like, okay, he's a bad guy, but there has to be a worst guy. And so yeah. So you've got these, I don't know. I guess they were also like Lithuanian soldiers who switched sides to work with the Nazis so that they could make more money and they became thieves and all this stuff. But then when we get to them later in life, it turns out, okay, they really are worse guys because as it turns out, you have Rhys Efins, Grudas character, who's I don't know.
It's like he's kidnapping women and creating like a canal brothels. Is that what he's doing? I I couldn't quite figure out what he's doing, but it seemed like that's essentially the crux of it. And I'm like, okay. So they're basically making him the worst because he's kidnapping people and using these women as prostitutes.
That's exactly. And I
Pete Wright: think what's interesting about the when you look at Hannibal in the prior movies, he was bad, and also there was another bad. Like, one of the cognitive challenges that you have as an audience member is trying to wrestle with, like, oh my god. These guys are on the same level. Like, they're both doing horrible things. And the difference between Hannibal and the other is this whole story of transformation.
I'm gonna turn into a butterfly. I'm gonna turn into a dragon. I'm gonna turn into a beautiful, beautiful thing. And this movie, I I kind of I'm coming to this right now. Like, what a missed opportunity to show Hannibal going through that exact transformation.
Like, as a sociopath, what is his transfer metamorphosis story? And this movie is so practical in its approach to bad thing equals revenge that I don't think we get any sense of Hannibal's transformation himself. And wouldn't that have been an interesting prequel to see his story and then be able to map it in hindsight with the benefit of hindsight on these other stories to demonstrate why he's so good at talking about Buffalo Bill and the Tooth Fairy. Like, because he was that guy. That's what this story should have been, and we don't have any of it.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Like, you know, have him get, Grutus on the couch. Yeah. You know? Talk about your issues.
You know? Like Right. I there's there's something more that could have been done there that just take the revenge out of it or find a better way to go about it. So it really kind of portrays the dark side of Lecter because we just don't really get the dark side other than that he's angry and he's gonna take revenge no matter what. Even though even Lady Murasaki is like, don't do it.
Like, she's seen what he can do. She's seen him the results of him killing the butcher, and she's helped him. She took that butcher's head and put it on the pike just so that Lecter could be freed. Like, she's she's become part of the crimes essentially. But she's also said, just tell the cop.
Just let him know so that you don't have to go through all this. And he's just like,
Pete Wright: I can't. I have to kill. The the first thing that you texted me, I was actually I I knew when you watched the movie because you texted me right away. And I I I was waiting for the text, and I was kind of in my head gaming. What is the first thing Andy's gonna say?
And what you said was not what I expected.
Andy Nelson: Okay.
Pete Wright: It was, what is Gong Li doing in this movie? Yeah. And I'd like to ask, did did you figure it out?
Andy Nelson: Money. She needs money. I don't think she has the the stunt woman background that Michelle Yeoh has, and so I think it's been harder for Gong Li to make a presence in in Hollywood, unfortunately. I think that she's she's stunning. We have talked about her in a number of films, notably when we did our series on Zhang Yimou and and his films and everything.
But largely, she just has not done much. She hasn't had as many opportunities, I should say, over here. And here's an example where, you know, as a Chinese woman, for the second time, she is playing a Japanese woman. This you know, after Memoirs of a Geisha. But I mean, okay.
So starting with Memoirs of Geisha in o five, then Miami Vice, then she goes back and she does, another film with, Zhang Yimou, and then she does this. And and then I think pretty much moving forward until she got to 2020 Mulan, I think largely she had been just specifically focusing on on movies back in Hong Kong and China. So I just feel like as essentially the end of a try at Hollywood, I think that she tried it and was like, I'm not getting anything good. I'm just gonna go back and do stuff back over in my home country. It's it's embarrassing to see her in this movie to the point where I finished it, I'm like, I have to watch a good Gong Li movie, and I immediately put on raise the red lantern because it was just
Pete Wright: I saw that. You needed a palate cleanser.
Andy Nelson: I felt so bad. I'm like, Gong, you need better people working as your American agents.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, did you know what you were getting into? Were you are you were you a celebrated fan of Hannibal, the character? Like, did you get it?
Andy Nelson: I have to think that this is one of those movies that likely is developing a following, now on on streaming and home video, and likely is something that at least is gonna be helping, you know, throw money at all the different people who are in it. Reese Evens, Dominic West. I like to think that they're all still gonna be getting checks from this at least.
Pete Wright: It's such a funny character because, you know, it's like she she adds this level of of class to the movie, the like, I don't know, emotional texture, and the script doesn't support that at all. It's there. It is it's not it's not present. Instead, we get this really ambiguous chemist chemistry. Right?
This is that is familial and sort of romantic, clearly. I guess that that makes you squirm in your seat. But beyond that kind of discomfort, I wasn't sure what what the entire familial relationship added to the movie. Like, why was she where she was? It I don't feel like the movie ever sold that.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. It was a strange choice, especially because in again, and this is it's I shouldn't complain about this because in the scope of prequels feeling forced to set all of these key elements up with your characters, Again, there's nothing that we have ever seen in Lecter as far as a background in swords swordsmanship or anything related to samurai culture, anything like that. Like, it's just not part of the nature of who we've ever seen. And so it just made me wonder. It's like, am I upset that they're not giving me something in his background that makes more sense as far as where we see him now?
Even though that would essentially be playing into all of those those prequel tropes that I hate so much. So I don't know. I feel torn on it. I just feel like it didn't work. It left me wondering, and maybe it's just because I like Gong Li so much.
It's just it was frustrating to see her in this. But I just I couldn't figure out why they went this route, and it was just a strange route to explore.
Pete Wright: Where do you stand on the, we we got Ben Davis behind the camera. Where do you stand on the look of the film in general?
Andy Nelson: Well, I like I said, like, I think that the look, the the tone, the music, like, everything works so much better than the story. Like, I I think that that Weber clearly had a team of people that he worked with here that crafted something that looked good. I mean, it's it's again, it helps that it's shot in a beautiful place, but it just I think that it's a nice looking film and, you know, I think Davis is one of those cinematographers. This is pretty early in his career, but has gone on to do a lot of big projects, and I think captures them really well. And, you know, I I enjoy I enjoy what he's doing here.
Pete Wright: He does some interesting things, these choices to keep coming back to Hannibal's eyes. Right? There's just there's a lot of close-up time dedicated to looking at Gaspard's eyes to the extent that you get something out of the depth of this character and the psychological distance that exists in the the terror chasm in his head. Right? You know, I think that's one of the things that the that the shot goes to over and over again.
And I think the you know, I I think when we have him with Murasaki, the lighting is just fantastic. Like, they make some really interesting choices for the visual aesthetic of of a lot of their sequences together that I think really works well. Generally, it's it's a pretty practiced standard kind of you know, you don't have a lot of freehand shots. You don't it's there are a lot of slow dollies and and not a lot going on that puts us at sort of risk of jarring us. You know?
There's there's not a lot of risky stuff going on with the camera, but some of these elements are really quite beautiful.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. No. Very true. You mentioned the looks of, like, with with Hannibal's eyes and everything. And you mentioned Gaspard Uliel, but, I mean, considering this is kind of the Hannibal Lecter series, I think we, you know, owe it to talk a little bit more about him.
And as far as what he's bringing to the table as our protagonist, primarily, we also have a young Hannibal Lecter. Aaron Thomas plays him. But I mean, what do you think of Gaspar? Does he is there anything that he's bringing to the character that that you can say, I can see this as the kid who would grow into either Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins?
Pete Wright: At no point did I was I able to say that. I found this to be a completely different guy. I was not able to make the connection. Not and and that's not to say that Gaspar's performance was necessarily bad. I mean, I blame that stuff on the story in the script.
I think he did a fine job for what he was given. I do not think he was right for the part. I don't think he looked right for the part. I don't I was never able to, like, chart in my head that this this guy as a young man would ever start to look like Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins. And Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins both cut a similar frame, a similar look to one another.
Right? They they there was some intentionality behind how they produced Anthony Hopkins after Brian Cox. They look alike. Right? They they look alike.
They have a similar sort of structure, and I just didn't see that in Gaspard. Not at all.
Andy Nelson: I agree with that element of it. I don't think that they cast somebody who ever could have looked like he was growing into either of those characters. And I think that was a struggle I had as well. Like, I had a hard time buying that this was gonna be the guy who had become, you know, one of them. It it bugged me.
It didn't bug me too much, but I did I couldn't help but feel like they were just trying to cast somebody who had just an intense look. I'm like, is that the right reason to cast Uliel? It's like, I think he's a very compelling actor. And actually, I enjoy moments in his performance, not because of, you know, what he's bringing to the character or anything like that. But I'm like, I I think he's a good actor.
And I I enjoyed what he was able to kind of craft here. I just think that, yeah, to your point, I just don't know if he was necessarily the right person for the role. It's a tough role to cast. I don't know who they who they would cast otherwise. Apparently, Hugh Dancy, Macaulay Culkin, Dominic Cooper, Tom Payne were all different people who auditioned for the role.
You know,
Pete Wright: I could see Kieran Culkin doing it. I I could see Kieran Culkin's face turn into Hopkins. That I could buy.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I just it's it but when it comes to what Uliel is doing is, like, I think that he's doing what he can with the script that he has given. And that's kind of the hard part of a role like this. And so I feel bad for the guy. And, yeah, you mentioned, I mean, he tragically died after a ski accident at just, 37 years old.
So just a couple years ago, so very sad. But I mean, I've seen him in a few other films. I I would need to go back and look at them again to recognize his part in those films because I I I know I've seen them. I just can't remember him in them, but I found him to be compelling enough.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I think so. And it's I I think he was obviously, you know, it's a tragic accident taken too soon. He he was in Moon Knight. That's the most recent thing I've seen him in.
He was in an episode of Moon Knight, and I very very much like that show. So I I just I just feel like it was a miss for this for this property.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. And Dominic West, he's our other well, Dominic West and Reese Efins, I don't know. Do you have very much to say about either of them? Our inspector and then the head of the the band
Pete Wright: that, ate Misha. Did you buy Dominic West?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I think he's fine as our detective here trying to figure things out. It wasn't a complex or complicated role. I, you know, I I I didn't have issues with him. I thought he was fine.
You know, I I just all my issues really resolve around revolve around the story here. Story.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I think Dominic West is one of the great sort of utility players in the business. Like, he just comes in, and he can be the gruff investigator. He can be the divorcing husband. He can be the cuckold.
He can be just about anything. And and so, you know, I think he was fine. I think he was fine. But I'm with you. The the problem with this movie is not with any of the individual performances.
No. Oh, we didn't we didn't mention Kevin McKid. Anytime we get a Kevin McKid reference, I have to do a special shout out to Kevin McKid.
Andy Nelson: That's funny because my wife was also like, why is Kevin McKid in this movie? Like, of all the people to call out, he's the same thing. That's very funny.
Pete Wright: It's really funny. It's weird. It's so weird.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I think we just we last talked about him on t two train spotting.
Pete Wright: That's right. That's right. He's great. Wish he was, in a better movie.
Andy Nelson: Yes. Me too. I I just you know, to the point where I just have to in this franchise, which we have brought this up more often than not about endings that feel completely tacked on. Like, since Islands of the Lambs, they've all had an ending that for one reason or another, people have complained about. This film ends with okay.
So Hannibal escapes from the flames of this this, houseboat that he is blowing up in the canal. And then we get this final scene of him hunting down the last member of this group who has moved to Canada and is running like a little convenience store, basically. And the guy comes into the room, and that's kind of it. And then he sees Hannibal, and then it cuts to Hannibal driving away. That's the end of the movie.
It was so anticlimactic to the point where I'm like, why did we even need this? I mean, all it's there for is just simply plot just to show he actually does go over there. But I'm like, there's nothing intriguing that happens. It's just it's the most flat way to kind of give us an ending. And I've had issues with a lot of the endings, notably in Hannibal when they, no, Red Dragon when they felt required to set up that ending, setting up that Clarisse was was coming to show up now and and talk to Hannibal.
This one just felt like it was the most boring way that they could have crafted an ending to this story.
Pete Wright: What they should have done is have him not in Canada. They'd have to be in The United States, probably somewhere in Maryland. And he's actually no longer he's obviously no longer a a Nazi traitor. He's now a school teacher, and he's teaching an eighth grade class. And it's a complete context shock because why are we now in an eighth grade class?
And the camera does a tracking shot, and it stops as a little girl raises her hand, and you just hear the former Nazi say, Clarisse, cut to black. Oh my gosh. Did I do I mean, really? Like, that's the that's the tie in you would have won it all along.
Andy Nelson: The see, they're just you think that it couldn't get any worse, and then Pete comes up with it. Pete comes up with it. There it is. Right there.
Pete Wright: Pete's got it. Pete just nailed it.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well, it's a frustrating way to end this franchise for sure because I feel like I mean, there's definitely highs and lows over the course of it. But by the time we get here, I'm just like, yeah, they've really they've really kind of hit bottom with
Pete Wright: They sure have.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. With what they could have done. And I just I feel like it's it just it boils down to Thomas Harris being stuck in a situation where he's like, they're gonna take it away from me and I better just suck it up and come up with something. And and he did. And it's just like, I just it's very frustrating that this is this is what they chose to do.
Pete Wright: This is actually going to become the anchor film for a series we need to do next year. And it's a series of films that were all written by writers under duress. Yeah. Because I don't think he's the only one who has fallen to this particular predicament. Probably not.
I'm sure not. Yeah. So frustrating. I'm trying to
Andy Nelson: think what other elements did they show that were tropes of Lecter as far as his backstory? I feel like there's Dogs. Dogs. We have him. He he's great at angry dogs.
He knows how to take care of angry dogs. Also, the lie detector test. He's so cool and collected that he can keep his pulse exactly where it needs to be and never make a budge on
Pete Wright: a lie detector test. I actually, thankfully, went into my Hannibal Lecter tropes on TVtropes.com. Let's just see what they have to say.
Andy Nelson: Oh, perfect.
Pete Wright: In Hannibal rising, animal lover, antagonist title, averted as Vladis Grutas is the villain, a hole victim, Hannibal's first kill, Paul Momond, is a foul mouthed Vichy collaborator who insulted Hannibal's Japanese aunt with racist epithets. Atonement detective, in contrast to the unrepentant collaborator above, inspector Popiel regards it as my greatest failure that he initially kept the peace for the Vichy government before seeing the camp trains and defecting to the resistance. Big brother instinct, breaking speech trope was used in the trope name or Hannibal himself by Vladis Grutas. He claimed that Hannibal is not looking for revenge, making sure that the men that participated in Demetia's murder wouldn't tell the world that Hannibal ate her too. Oof.
Yeah. I mean, there are a lot. Co dragons, cool uncle. It just goes on and on. We got them all.
Andy Nelson: So many things. So many things.
Pete Wright: Oh, death there's here's a good one. Death by racism. Hannibal's first victim is an Asian hating racist. There you go. Yep.
Yeah. Alright. Well, I guess that's everything. Yeah. I'm I I'm not gonna revisit this movie.
Andy Nelson: No. No. I certainly hope to never think about it again. Well, we'll be right back. But first, our credits.
Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Romeo, Ian Post, featuring Sivan Talmur, Gilad Banamrong, Oriole Novella, and Eli Cattlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at b-numbers.com, box office mojo Com, I m d b Com, and Wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.
Pete Wright: They told me not to look back. They said, let your past die. But I had reviews to log. I was just a boy when it happened. I watched them five stars for a movie that barely earned two, and then that changed me.
So I went looking for the ones responsible, the tastemakers, the cinephiles, the ones who put Morbius on a best of list unironically. And that's when
Pete Wright: I found
Pete Wright: it. Letterboxed, a refuge, a journal, a database, a perfectly alphabetized genre sorted custom list enabled oasis where I
Pete Wright: could keep track of everything I watched,
Pete Wright: and more importantly, where I could tell the world why I hated it. And now now you can join me, and you can save 20% when you go pro with Letterboxd. That's right. Whether you're signing up or renewing your sacred vow I mean, subscription, just go to the next real Com / letterboxd or use the code next real at checkout. Because some people just watch movies, but we remember.
Pete Wright: How to do it award season, Andy?
Andy Nelson: You about as well as you would expect. It was nominated for two, and they were both Razzies. We love the Razzies. That's right. It was nominated for worst prequel or sequel, but lost to the film daddy day camp.
And it was nominated for worst excuse for a horror movie, but lost to I know who killed me.
Pete Wright: Mhmm. Okay. Well, I don't normally like what the Razzies do, but in this case, I do think it is probably well earned. If you're gonna have an award like the Razzies, this is a movie for it. Let's just say that.
Andy Nelson: There you go. There you go.
Pete Wright: How to do at the box office? Did it make any money at all?
Andy Nelson: Well, for Weber's prequel, he had a budget of 75,000,000 or a hundred 14,700,000.0 in today's dollars. The movie returned to the Valentine's Day period opening 02/09/2007 opposite Norbit, daddy's little girls, and music and lyrics. Talking about a weekend of fun filled entertainment. Chimney. This landed in the number two spot behind Norbit.
That's right. And it would fall out of the top 10 by its third week. It would go on to earn 27,700,000.0 domestically and 54,500,000.0 internationally for a total gross of 125,700,000.0 in today's dollars. That lands the film with an adjusted profit per finished minute of $90,600. Still turned a profit, but was the weakest of the bunch post silence of the lambs.
Pete Wright: I am I'm surprised at that. I guess I'm not surprised at that. I mean, it's a it's a Hannibal Lecter movie. Everybody goes gonna go see it, and they're only gonna see it once, and they're not gonna tell anybody about it. And then it dies.
Andy Nelson: Well, and I think the reason that we haven't seen another one, because based on the way that De Laurentiis was talking to Harris, like, he wanted to keep making Hannibal as long as it was gonna make make money. But I think the profit margin was so slim on this one, and who knows, after prints and advertising, it might not have actually even turned a profit that it kind of crossed that line finally. Because, you know, generally, it's like you you have a a rise with the first few films, and then it just is a slow decline. And once it crosses that line, it's just no longer profitable to keep making anymore. And I think that's why we haven't seen anymore and, you know, why it's probably shifted to TV and certainly one that I, I need to check out now because I hear I hear it's worth it.
Pete Wright: Really good things.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Alright. Well, this was a rough way to finish it, but we've had some good movies in this series. So we'll have those to hold on to, I guess.
Pete Wright: We'll always have those.
Andy Nelson: Well, yeah. Alright. Well, we'll be right back for our ratings. But first, here's the trailer for next week's movie. Returning to the land of Samaria, it's Richard Fleischer's follow-up to Conan the Barbarian.
It's Conan the destroyer from 1984.
Trailer: In an age when only the strongest survive and only the ruthless triumphed, Only one name became a legend. Conan, the destroyer. In his first adventure, he fought alone.
It is written that a woman child must make a perilous journey. I want you to take her on that journey.
Now he joins a wizard.
What are they going to do?
Have watch. A
warrior.
There are six of them against him.
One, two, three. A renegade I think you're right. And a princess. Together, They are sent by a treacherous queen across the lands of hostile kingdoms to solve the mystery of an ancient race and seek the power of a phantom city.
You're afraid of magic.
And when it comes from evil
This will
come many will. The horn of Dagoth, destroyer of worlds. The god will live again.
Enough talk. If
they cannot seize the horn in time, the world will be plunged into eternal darkness. Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, Mako, Sarah Douglas, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the destroyer. The all new adventures of the most powerful legend of them all.
Andy Nelson: Well, well, my friends. It seems that even I, Hannibal Lecter, am not immune to the allure of a good origin story. Hannibal rising, the film that dares to unravel the mystery of my past to offer a glimpse into the events that shaped me into the man I am today. I must admit it's a rather peculiar feeling watching one's life play out on the silver screen to see a young actor portray me as a tragic hero, a man driven by the noble pursuit of revenge against those who wronged my family. It's almost enough to make me forget about the whole cannibalistic serial killer thing.
But let's be honest, my friends. We all know how this story ends. No matter how much the filmmakers try to make you sympathize with my character, the fact remains that I go on to become one of cinema's most notorious villains. It's a bit like trying to make a heartwarming tale about the childhood of Darth Vader. Sure.
It might be interesting, but we all know he's gonna end up blowing up planets and choking people with his mind. And yet I can't help but appreciate the irony of it all. Here I am, a fictional character offering my thoughts on a film that attempts to humanize me. It's a bit like a snake critiquing a documentary about its own venom. But fear not, my fellow cinephiles.
The next reel has a veritable feast of films far more deserving of your time and attention. From the masterful storytelling of the Godfather trilogy to the pulse pounding thrills of the silence of the lambs, the hosts have dissected and discussed a wide array of cinematic delights, each one a gourmet meal for the mind and the senses. And as a member of the NextReal community, you'll have access to even more tantalizing content, monthly bonus episodes, extra insights woven into each regular episode, and the delightful convenience of early ad free access, all for just $5 a month or $55 for a whole year. Visit truestory.fm/join and embark upon a journey of discovery where the only thing you have to fear is running out of fava beans and a nice chianti.
Pete Wright: Letterbox, Andy. This is it. This is the make or break letterbox week. This is this is You have to do
Andy Nelson: a full accounting. Okay. So I'll do my accounting. So Manhunter, I gave four stars. Silence of Lambs, I gave five stars.
Hannibal, I gave one star. And then Red Dragon, I gave three stars. So that puts me at a total so far of nine, ten, 11, 12, 13 stars.
Pete Wright: God, I hope you don't. I hope to God you don't get to 15.
Andy Nelson: I'll I'll tell you. I'm not hitting 15. I know you had this this thing about, you know, an average of three stars per film equaling 15 total for this series, And you're at 14 right now. Right?
Pete Wright: Yeah. I feel like I I did not go into this planning my star numbers. I just had a feeling that I could hit it. I just had a hunch.
Andy Nelson: Exactly hit it. Exactly hit it.
Pete Wright: And and I did. Hannibal rising is a one star movie. And that means my four star manhunter, my three star red dragon, my five star silence of the lambs, my two star Hannibal, and now my one star no heart Hannibal rising. And I'm there.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. And that's exactly where I sit. One star, no heart with this one. It was a rough watch. This and Hannibal both were quite disappointing in this.
Yeah. It's very frustrating. It it had its moments, but none of them were anything good that that could have gotten it above
Pete Wright: one star. Moments, none of them were good. Well, I mean, none of them
Andy Nelson: were good enough to put above one Yeah. Oh, it's a rough one. It was a rough one. Well, will you'll you'll find that over on our Letterboxd account, which is at the next reel. That's one star, no heart.
And you can find me there at Soda Greek Film. You can find Pete there at Pete Wright. So what did you think about Hannibal rising? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community, where we will be talking about the movie this week.
When the movie ends. Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Letterbox giveth, Andrew. As Letterboxd always doeth. Alright. You went for the fans.
Andy Nelson: Right? I wanted to know. Yeah. There are over at Letterboxd, a 72 people are fans, meaning they have it in their, their four.
Pete Wright: Okay. Top four list. Yeah. Alright. So go ahead.
Tell me tell me what the fans say.
Andy Nelson: I've got two. One is a strange one in Spanish translation. Hannibal Lecter is my son. He came out of my womb, spent nine months in my belly, and I gave birth to him. Brian Fuller can attest to this.
He was the doctor who delivered him.
Pete Wright: I that's weird because it seems like some of those things are out of order.
Andy Nelson: It does. Well, maybe that's part of the problem with
Pete Wright: him. That's part of the problem with the movie.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. The, the other one, though, that I wanted to go to is Annie, another five star, which I appreciate this one. This is not good movie, but I think about it at least three times a day. Best experienced when delivery delirious from fever and only barely conscious.
Pete Wright: That's real good. Okay. So I made a comment about that they made him a a superhero. Correct. And so I have a review that addresses exactly that, and I think it's Fantastic.
An astute review. It's a two and a half stars from Next Real family member Ray Delancey. Hey. Who says only this, Hannibal Lecter has the same origin story as Magneto. Who knew?
He's he's dead on. So for those who get the magneto play, I doff my hat to you because that's absolutely the the thing I should have said. It's much more magneto than Yes. You know, deadpool. So funny.
So true. Yeah. So funny. Thanks, Letterboxd.