When I mentioned to friend Kate that we'd gone to see Hannibal Rising, she responded, "Why?" Now Kate's a movie critic who pretty much gives every production a fair shake but seems I missed the hype that this movie was either predicted to be seriously bad or at best no one was interested in Hannibal prior to Clarice...or both. So we naively went off to the theatre and actually enjoyed (is that the word?) the movie. Okay, so judging from the half full theatre on opening weekend, we may be among the few. But considering that neither of us usually goes for the gorey stuff and still liked this one, well, I seriously don't know what that means. Admittedly, I did have to turn my face away a couple of times but darn it, it offered an explanation good enough for us to accept how Hannibal developed into the flesh-craving creature he did. You will remember from previous writings that I go to movies to suspend reality, kick back, and just enjoy. My critical threshold is low. I don't get into the "but it couldn't have happened that way" stuff, or "that's illogical" or whatever. I just go see the movie. Lest I despair, Bruce Westbrook of the Houston Chronicle also liked it and gave it 3 out of 4 stars. For those who don't plan to see it; an overview of the plot comes next, excerpted from Lawrence Toppman's review (The Charlotte Observer). I thought Gaspard Ulliel, with his intense malevolence appearance, was cast perfectly as the young Hannibal.

We meet the title character in 1944, as his parents are leaving their Lithuanian castle. Hannibal and his younger sister are soon orphaned in a firefight between Nazis and Russians and hide in a cottage on the property. They're discovered by wolvish looters who kill and eat the little girl. A decade later, the grown Hannibal (hollow-faced Gaspard Ulliel) relocates to France to live with his aunt, stalks the five slayers, tortures them and takes bites out of their cheeks, becoming the cannibal we know and fear.

His aunt, Lady Murasaki (Chinese actress Gong Li), accepts his need for revenge because her whole family was killed in the war. Parisian detective Pascal Popil (Britain's Dominic West) understands Hannibal's bloodlust because his whole family was killed in the war, though he seems to understand very little about bloodstains and fingerprints. But he promises, "If you kill in France, I'll have your head in a bucket."

Gaspard Ulliel as the young Hannibal