If you’ve seen any previous Hannibal Lecter movie, or read the Thomas Harris books, you can probably pencil your own sordid tale of how the cannibalistic serial killer came to be. Harris’s adaptation of his novel, which came out last December, lays out all the gory details as a WW2- era orphan in Lithuania morphs into the seductive gourmand that won Anthony Hopkins an Oscar. The defining moment comes when a gang of shifty looters cook up a heinous fate for Hannibal’s near-infant sister, Mischa. Later, as a young man studying medicine in Paris, Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) hunts down the perps. Ulliel gives it a game go, but he lacks Hopkins’s relish and keen delivery. Yet as pedantic in form as the film is, it compels. Credit in part the slick vitality director Peter Webber imbues each scene with, and more so the ageless Gong Li as Hannibal’s enigmatic aunt. Silly yes, but that won’t stop the sequels.
