I had a lot of bad feelings about seeing the Hannibal prequel because, lets just be honest folks, the other movies in this series are amazing and very suspenseful. But the online community, which can kill or save movies by their force alone, was putting this down as a "forced prequel" and a "disgrace to the Lecter we know." But, being the amazingly objective movie critic that I am, I went with no preconceptions of what it would be like... and I was surprised.
The setting is in Eastern Europe towards the end of World War II; the Lecter family is forced to evacuate their castle and go into hiding where a young Hannibal soon watches as his parents violently die, leaving his young sister in his care. Alone and without any means of support, he is forced to live in a Soviet orphanage until he can find means to flee to Paris in search of his uncle, who has since the war died. However, his Japanese widow, Lady Murasaki welcomes him into her house where she trains and educates the teenaged Hannibal until he is accepted into medical school (where he hones his skills and is provided the tools to exact justice on the war criminals that haunt him).
If it wasn't for the fact that this really is an awful prequel to the Hannibal series, it would have been a very good movie. It was engaging, didn't seem to try and take its self too seriously as a movie, but did, however, lack the suspense which other Hannibal movies had, yet, in my mind, made up for it in his character development and the sick, yet amusing scenes where he extracts revenge on rude individuals and the war criminals who scarred him.
The movie gets a lot of flack for not representing him as he appears later in his life, but I think that critics forget just how much an individual changes in his late teen and early adult years. The stretch from the young, vengeful Hannibal shown in this prequel could easily become the demented, almost overly sane, serial killer whom we all know and love. All in all, I think this movie is worth it, especially if you have a craving for the delectable taste of human cheeks.