With his razor-sharp, incisive wit and volcanic rage, Hannibal Lecter has become engrained as one of cinema's most fascinating and fearsome boogiemen.

Anthony Hopkins Oscar-winning portrayal of the brilliant yet deadly killer in The Silence Of The Lambs immortalised the character in the collective consciousness.

The subsequent, vastly inferior films Hannibal and Red Dragon have diluted Lecter's mystique, turning him into a camp pantomime villain.

Now, he is reborn in Hannibal Rising, the blood-soaked and sporadically gory prequel to Red Dragon, which traces the origins of the character's savagery and suffering back to a series of horrific incidents in his childhood.

The entrails spill forth in Peter Webber's film - so too do yawns and unintentional laughs as author Thomas Harris adapts his own hugely disappointing novel for the big screen.

As World War II rumbles on in eastern Europe, Hannibal's parents Richard Leaf and Ingeborga Dapkunaite flee their home for a secluded cottage in the forest, taking their young son Aaron Thomas and his baby sister Helena-Lia Tachovska with them.

When his parents die in a violent altercation, Hannibal takes care of Tachovska, but they soon suffer at the hands of five mercenaries.

Many years later, the teenage Hannibal, now played by Gaspard Ulliel, escapes from a Soviet orphanage to seek refuge in Paris with his one remaining relative, his uncle's wife Gong Li.

Haunted by hellish memories of the past, Hannibal grows increasingly restless.

Honing his scientific skills at medical school, Hannibal vows bloodthirsty revenge on the mercanaries.

But tenacious policeman, Dominic West is hot on his trail.

Hannibal Rising is certainly well made, with beautiful production design and cinematography, but there is nothing in Webber's film to engage us on an emotional level.

Any sympathy we might muster for the central character is snuffed out by Ulliel's flat, lifeless performance while Li grapples with the English dialogue.

The slayings of the war criminals increase in ferocity and graphic violence, the final showdown hinging on an outrageous twist of fate that merits a disbelieving chuckle.