This is an unfortunate addition to the franchise, which to be honest, should have been left with Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs. Since then? Stuff that has made people money, but not much else.
The story line (and don't think there are any spoilers here, but always beware, sometimes I think the smallest fact ruins a movie) revolves around Hannibal's experiences during WWII, and some particularly nasty Nazis, Russians, and others. They give rise to some anger management problems for the poor wretched kid.
But there is a major strange disconnect between this "prequel" and the movies it is supposed to precede. I don't know about anyone else, but I never even considered the possibility that Hannibal Lecter was of eastern European descent. Just me, sure, I guess. But, what? Guess he's supposed to be brilliant, and so maybe Anthony Hopkins doing a bad Maryland accent can be excused because he was covering up a bad Lithuanian accent.
Problem is more basic though, bad plotting, weird events, bad acting, nothing really having to do with the other movies except cannibalism. And even that is strained.
Lecter is supposed to be evil, but here he's just not very good.
The story line (and don't think there are any spoilers here, but always beware, sometimes I think the smallest fact ruins a movie) revolves around Hannibal's experiences during WWII, and some particularly nasty Nazis, Russians, and others. They give rise to some anger management problems for the poor wretched kid.
But there is a major strange disconnect between this "prequel" and the movies it is supposed to precede. I don't know about anyone else, but I never even considered the possibility that Hannibal Lecter was of eastern European descent. Just me, sure, I guess. But, what? Guess he's supposed to be brilliant, and so maybe Anthony Hopkins doing a bad Maryland accent can be excused because he was covering up a bad Lithuanian accent.
Problem is more basic though, bad plotting, weird events, bad acting, nothing really having to do with the other movies except cannibalism. And even that is strained.
Lecter is supposed to be evil, but here he's just not very good.