The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

So I had finally submitted to watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo earlier this year and really loved it. I also loved the second movie in this trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire. Naturally, I was ecstatic that I was getting the chance to see this third one in the theater. I was excited for this film and went in with high expectations. I should note that I haven’t read any of the books these films are based on.

This movie finds the infamous Lisbeth Salander while she is recovering in the hospital following her injuries sustained in the last film. She also finds herself charged for the ‘crimes’ she committed in the second film as well. Michael Blomvkist works diligently with his magazine, Millenium, to uncover government secrets and prove Salander’s innocence in the film.

Now, I haven’t read the books and this may have been an extremely exciting story on paper, however in film, I found it quite boring. To me, it felt like a glorified ending of the second film. I was expecting a new and interesting story, as in the first two films. The plot spent a lot of time on the details of the conspiracy aspect of the story, which I found a little excessive. I would have much rather seen the plot focus on Michael and Lisbeth’s characters, however Lisbeth was in only a handful of scenes. There were some great revenge aspects of the movie which felt in keeping with the first two movies, but again this plot was just overall lackluster and the ending was very anticlimactic.  

The cinematography was on par with the first two and I especially liked the wardrobe/makeup of Lisbeth in the court scenes. The use of Apple computers was also awesome in my opinion, and in keeping with the first two.

The actors did a good job in this movie despite the boring plot, and especially Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist. They were in keeping with their characters. Rapace was a little more subdued in this movie than the other two, possibly from the things her character had recently gone through? However, her character has been through the ringer in the past and I wouldn’t see her losing any of her spunk over the recent events. I actually didn’t find that the actor (Georgi Staykov) playing Zalachenko pulled off that character, he was not believable to me as having as much power as he supposedly had.

Overall, I think that the reason I was disappointed in this movie is I was expecting a new plot instead of a continuation of the last one. I was entertained and my interest was held, although I believe partly because I was waiting for the big action parts to occur. I guess if I remove myself from my disappointment, it wasn’t a terrible movie and was probably entertaining as a court drama, but in comparison to the other two it just wasn’t as unique and ‘badass’.  “I’m willing to answer your questions. You didn’t ask a question.” – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.