Hannibal Rising...only to sink again

...or maybe he just bobbles on the surface.

Yesterday, along with my fiance, I attended the New York premiere of the movie Hannibal Rising, and let me tell you, the experience of attending a movie premiere was a great deal more interesting the movie. Though ironically, what made the former more interesting than the latter was mundaneness of both events.

The premiere, at the 66st Lincoln Center IMAX theater had the red carpet and the photographers, at least that's what I saw as I and the rest of the audience went up the back way. Inside we were assigned seats which were simply awful. I think they gave me the mathematically second worse seat in the house. No matter, since there was plenty of space because the whole place was at about about half capacity. All that ado for naught. Word was we were suppose to take our assigned places until the "celebrities" took their seats, but as my friend who worked at the theater said, 'what celebrities? Every one is an unknown in that film!' Which I soon discovered once the lights went down. The only dude I remembered in that whole flick was the guy who played Danny Deckchair. I could have been sitting next to Hannibal himself and wouldn't have known. Which leads me to the second thing. For a movie premiere the audience was surprisingly common. My fiance and I happen to attend many sneak previews for movies (just run a Google search--you'll be surprised how many test audiences you can participate in), and many times its just a good slice of New York, from the poorest black woman to the Fifth avenue princess with the fur coat. This audience was no different and, as one, we proceeded to immediately break the rules, stealing and bartering for better seats. I think Harvey Weinstein had some company in the back row. Oh yeah he was there too. He's pretty fat, though it could have just been wads of money he had strapped to his belly. Remember, Hollywood people are pretty eccentric.

After all that the movie itself was a pretty big let down. The kid who plays the young Hannibal was good--no Anthony Hopkins--but good. In fact the performances all around were quite solid. What was the greatest let down for me was the script, penned by Thomas Harris the creator of the Hannibal series and writer of the original novels. Usually as sophisticated as his protagonist, this story was a typical revenge flick that just happened to star Hannibal Lecter, though with a touch here and there it could have stared anyone from Bruce Wayne to Stephen Segal. You do get a sense of where Hannibal's particular 'craving' comes from, but while undeniably traumatizing, the event doesn't get visceral enough to be convincing. You keep thinking that for Hannibal to be who he is the 'event' means nothing and that, like Dexter (the Showtime character) he's just your run of the mill sociopath who hides behind a myth. Regardless, unless you're a huge fan of the series you'd be better off renting this one on a rainy day.

But then again, I'm not Rex Reed, I'm just a face in the crowd.