Movie Review: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (2010)
The final installment in the trilogy delivers the small amount of intrigue
Photo: Music Box Films
What a fascinating story this film series, its stars and source material make. The late Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy found tremendous acclaim throughout much of 2010 and the trilogy of Swedish films adapted from those novels have made a minor splash Stateside and have even propelled its two lead actors into soon-to-be-featured actors in Hollywood. Michael Nyqvist has been cast as the villain in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Noomi Rapace has secured the lead female villain role in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes 2 and is a candidate to play the lead in Ridley Scott's Alien prequel. Impressive to say the least.
The cast includes Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" is a Music Box Films release, directed by Daniel Alfredson and is rated R for strong violence, some sexual material, and brief language. The running time is 2 hours 28 minutes.
Beginning with a lengthy reminder of things that transpired in the last film (The Girl Who Played with Fire), we find the titular "Girl," Lisbeth Salandar (Rapace), bed-ridden in a hospital, beaten to within inches of her life with a bullet lodged in her skull. The title of the film refers to the trouble she's caused, primarily over the course of the second film, as she's become the prime target for a slew of underworld baddies.
On Lisbeth's side is Millennium magazine editor and journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Nyqvist), and his only goal is to clear her name and see those trying to bring her down brought to justice.
Much of the story builds to Lisbeth being tried in court for nearly beating her father to death for past atrocities. The deck is stacked against her and when she isn't tapping away on the cell phone Mikael smuggles into her hospital room she is straight-faced and emotionless. If this is what the roles in Sherlock and Alien call for then Rapace is their girl. Otherwise she must have knocked 'em out during the audition process, because the only trait on display here is a closed off and indifferent character. While Rapace nails it, it doesn't necessarily make for an intriguing movie, at least not at 148 minutes.
Directed by Daniel Alfredson, who also directed The Girl Who Played with Fire, the film lacks a certain amount of energy and there would hardly be any if the narrative didn't occasionally demand it as most of the characters in this film aren't exactly boisterous or even interesting for that matter. At least the first two films had a level of mystery behind them and even some action. Here a crew of old fogies are shown to have done bad things in the past, and, in this case, woebegone geriatrics hardly make for the best cinematic villains.
I get the feeling the intrigue of this film series is supposed to be Lisbeth's cold heart and the way she shuts herself off emotionally from everyone else. This works in books, where the inner monologue and motivations of a character can be fleshed out, but in movies you need to work a little harder. It will likely be the number one issue David Fincher and his lead actress Rooney Mara will face with the American remake and hopefully they'll learn from this franchise's failings.
It's not like this trilogy of films is bad, but it's hard to separate one from the other. If you've seen one you feel like you've seen them all as hardly enough happens in the latter two films to give much reason for their existence. The most interesting aspect is finding out what ultimately happens as the story itself as told over three films is mildly interesting, it just didn't need three lengthy films to be told.
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Enjoyed Dragon Tattoo a lot, couldn't bring myself to care about the sequels. Utterly average.
Havent seen Played with Fire, I enjoyed Dragon Tattoo too much to bring myself to pay money for it's sequel after the reviews
were poor.
I really enjoyed Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but after seeing the very average Girl who Played with Fire I just can't bring myself round to watch the final installment.
Have you noticed how these films have an almost absent soundtrack?
I haven't seen this one yet, although I read the books and have seen the first two movies. The review sounds pretty balanced, and I agree with some of your comments in general about the translation of the books into movies. But maybe having read the books I didn't find Rapace's characterization of Lisbeth Salander to be the problem that you expressed. Lisbeth is portrayed in the books as very emotionally distanced and it's hinted at more than once that she has Asperger's Syndrome (autism). I found Rapace's portrayal to be spot on given how the character was written by Larsson. I have to agree, though, that this creates a problem for the movies, particularly for anyone who hasn't read the books. If you've read the books, you can fill in the emotional voids in the character yourself from the context of the novels. But I can see where someone who hasn't read the novels would be turned off or at least left wanting more from the character. At the same time, I'm concerned that the American movie versions will stray too far from that basis of character and that would be disturbing to me. One of the things that makes the stories work so well, IMO, is that very inability of Salander to connect in some basic way with the outside world and the process she goes through during the course of the novels to begin to overcome her emotional handicaps.