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The Girl Who Played With Fire

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Whoever edited the Millennium Trilogy into film is a genius. Stieg Larsson was a good author and his novels are captivating, but he can detail an idea to death. Whereas the screen writer for the films has taken pages, even chapters of Larsson's minutia and delivered the meaning and impact of Stig's over description in a raised eyebrow, a word or a deceptively simple scene. The Girl Who Played With Fire is a bridge between Dragon Tattoo and Hornet's Nest, yet the screen writer has delivered a film that stands on its own. I've read the books and thoroughly enjoyed the films. My husband has not read the books and was impressed by the films. We have seen Dragon Tattoo three times and Fire twice at the theater and can't wait for Hornet's Nest to come out this fall. Although this is a non English film, I found the captioning to be very easy to follow and it did not detract from enjoying the movie. Watch Dragon Tattoo first, then enjoy Fire and the brilliant acting of Noomi Rapace, this woman is a stunner and is perfect in the role of Lisbet Salander. See it.

This is the second movie out of the Millennium Trilogy. Middle movies often have difficulties, since they end "in media res." That, of course, describes the second of the three works on Stieg Larsson's trilogy. However, this movie is still quite effective on its own merits.

For one thing, the character of Lisbeth Salander has been developed. And she is the focal point of this movie. Noomi Rapace continues her splendid acting in the role. She is not as tiny as the character described in the book (four feet eleven inches tall and about ninety pounds), but she seems to me to capture the character of Salander. She is coldly efficient when taking on people whom she deems "bad" or not leaving her in peace or men who hate women. That is exemplified here in her treatment of one of the "johns" who had been identified by a team--Dag and Mia (boyfriend-girlfriend)--who were in their separate ways examining sex trafficking in Sweden. And of her sanguinary meeting with the two bikers of Sweden's Hell's Angels "wannabes."

The story itself focuses on the murder of Dag and Mia--and of lawyer Bjurman, who was Salander's "guardian." She had been deemed incompetent many years before and was still caught in the system. When her former guardian, Palmgren, was felled by a stroke, Bjurman took over. He was hardly an impartial overseer. In the first movie, Salander had "neutralized" Bjurman. She had a powerful motive to kill him. Indeed, in the end, with her fingerprints on the gun that had killed all three people, she became wanted as the killer.

The book moves ahead from that premise. Her former lover and friend, Mickael Blomkvist, believes her to be innocent and sets out to try to find the real killer. They had not seen one another for a year and their communication is limited to e-mail and other indirect communication.

The movie speeds forward (it hardly seems to be over two hours long) to her inevitable confrontation with her father and a blonde giant who feels no pain (her taser has little effect on him). Her poignant e-mail message to Blomkvist as she headed off to face her father is powerful: "Thank you for being my friend." She "comes back" from the dead, having been severely wounded and left for dead. Her survival is somewhat improbable, but the touching meeting between her and Blomkvist at the end is powerful indeed. Palmgren is never identified as her former guardian (if you have read the books, you know who he is). This movie is closer to the book than the first, but that is not a matter of importance for either. They are both true to the spirit of the book and the key characters. A minor annoyance: At times the English subtitles are hard to read, as they are in light shading and when the screen is light, too, it's a bit tough to read--but, not a major issue.

The ending is powerful, leaving us to wonder what is to be the fate of Lisbeth and how the conspiracy to imprison her because of her father's value to the secret service of Sweden is to end. A worthy sequel to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

The late Stieg Larsson centered his Millennium Trilogy around cruelty towards women -- and the movie adaptations don't hold back either.

The second movie of the trilogy, "The Girl Who Played With Fire," is a tightly wound thriller that is almost as good as the first. It lacks some of the raw, wild, dark energy, but it tangles together some razor-sharp social commentary (sex trafficking) with car chases and conspiracies. Best of all, it still has brilliant performances by Michael Nyqvist and Noome Rapace.

A year after "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," Millennium magazine has a new reporter -- Dag Svensson (Hans Christian Thulin) and his girlfriend are doing reports on sex trafficking and prostitution. But then Mikael (Nyqvist) finds both of them dead in their apartment, and Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) -- the cruel "guardian" who raped Lisbeth -- has been brutally shot in the head.

Since Lisbeth (Rapace) just returned to Stockholm (and threatened to shoot Bjurman), she becomes the No. 1 suspect in all three murders. Even though, y'know, she had no motive for two of them.

Of course, Mikael doesn't believe that she did it -- especially since a hostile blond giant is going around beating up anyone (a trainer, a casual girlfriend) who might know Lisbeth's whereabouts. As Lisbeth goes on her own dark mission, she tells Mikael that he should look for someone named "Zala." But when Mikael starts hunting for information on this mystery man, he also learns more about Lisbeth's dark past...

Lisbeth Salander was something of a mystery in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" -- we knew she was troubled, a brilliant hacker, and had been in a psych ward. But "The Girl Who Played With Fire" rips away all that mystery and shows us where Lisbeth Salander came from, and how she became a lonely, punky avenging angel. It's pretty nasty, and it ends on a cliffhanger (for crying out loud!).

The biggest problem with this story is that it lacks the raw, primal energy that made the first movie so vibrant. But it's still a tightly-wound thriller with plenty of unpolished fighting, bloody violence, and some moments of bleak humor (Lisbeth "renting" a car after shoving the clerk in a locker). The most disturbing parts are undeniably the flashbacks to Lisbeth's past, both with her family and in a psych ward (depicted in a surreal, blurry-white nightmare).

And it's all wound around more unpleasant aspects of modern Swedish society, centering on cruelty towards women -- sex trafficking in a modern country, and the evil "Zala's" ability to get away with anything he wanted.

And while Nyqvist does a good job here, the real spotlight here is on Noome Rapace. This woman is brilliant -- all lean wildcat energy, haunted eyes and half-hidden pain. While Lisbeth seems to have healed a little from her past experiences (she seems more open and friendly), there's still a river of darkness flowing just under the surface, and Rapace does a particularly good job when Lisbeth goes a-hunting for the bad guys.

"The Girl Who Played With Fire" doesn't have the spark of the first movie, but it still has an electric brilliance and scathing social exploration. Too bad we have to wait so long for the finale!

'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' has a Run Time of 152 minutes,and 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' 129 minutes.
In Sweden,all three films have been issued on DVD,and Blu-Ray,with a Run Time of 186 minutes.
Do Studios/Distributors think viewers have limited attention spans that so much of a film should be edited out?

The second section of a trilogy is usually the most unsatisfying. The loose ends of the first installment, in this case the superb The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [Blu-ray] are mostly tied up, but by the second part the larger theme, in this case misogyny, is opened up and awaits resolution in the final episode.

In this work we realize that "the Girl" is far more than just a supporting character in a journalist's investigation of a family mystery. The girl is Lisbeth Salander, brilliant, sneaky, sexually ambiguous, and brave. She is both the victim of unspeakable crimes and the avenger of those crimes. The original title of the manuscripts for all three novels was "Men Who Hate Women". In that context we see that Salander is everywoman, at least every woman who has ever been treated unjustly by men. The form of that injustice can be physical, economic, sexual, or judicial. Salander is victimized by all four her tale careens wildly as she addresses each persecution with steely determination.

Noomi Rapace is brilliant as the girl. It is difficult to imagine how Hollywood who has started filming its own version of the trilogy can find an actress so perfectly suited for the role, one which requires edginess, youth, and total believability. Mikael Blomkvist (moodily played by Michael Nyqvist) is still around, but he is no longer at the center of the storm.

The sexual violence of the first installment is abated. This will make it an easier view than the disturbing scenes in part one for some. However, the violence was not gratuitous, and certainly not salacious. It plays a critical role in the plot and the development of what is to come. For those who can't stand subtitles, the DVD has a dubbed English track. Personally I was so captured by this film, that the subtitles were not a distraction. One of the big complaints about the novels has been that Stieg Larrson used too much exposition and not enough dialog to move the plot. That spareness of words has transferred well to the screen.

Finally this movie is gorgeous in Blu-ray. The crisp Swedish winter has dissolved into a glorious spring. It is the perfect setting for Salander's rebirth as an avenging angel.

I took the opposite tack in reviewing The Girl Who Played With Fire than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In the case of Dragon Tattoo I read the book before seeing the movie, in The Girl who Played with Fire I saw the movie first.

With the movie The Girl who Played with Fire it seems a formula has been discovered. The story runs parallel between Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist until towards the end the stories intersect. Lisbeth returns to Sweden to find that her state appointed "guardian" has been murdered and a gun found at the scene has her fingerprints on it. Blomkvist and his Millenium magazine are investigating a prostitution ring with high connected and influential clients. Unfortunately, this time around the stories seem too independent and separate from each other. Blomkvist and Salander only have minimal contact throughout the movie and there doesn't seem to be any real connection between them except the storyline dictates a reunion. When they do reunite there's no emotional impact or sense of relief that once again they were able to help each other.

None of the plot twists as they are revealed are too surprising. As a matter of fact they seem rather pedestrian and a little too predictable. In the film there also seems to be a little nod to Tarantino and maybe even Frankenstein, as the murderer has qualities that make him seem almost an invincible adversary incapable of being killed.

Lisbeth doesn't really seem to be playing with fire except in the literal sense that she lit her abusive father on fire. It doesn't seem like Lisbeth is playing with fire in a figurative sense. Her character is more reactive to situations, and it seems more like Lisbeth was playing with fire in her actions during The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Of course, in Dragon, the tattoo is just there, it has no active part in the plot except that Lisbeth has a dragon tattoo.

The Girl Who Played With Fire seems more of a disjointed movie than Dragon Tattoo. One of the criticisms of Dragon Tattoo was it being disjointed and as I said I read the book before seeing the movie of Dragon Tattoo so maybe I was able to fill in the blanks I wasn't able to with The Girl Who Played with Fire. It may be disjointed for those who haven't read the book.

With Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist reprising their roles as Lisbeth and Blomkvist respectively, their performances are still strong and believable as the characters. It's just the material they're given isn't as strong as the first movie.

There was a technical issue that was distracting. Some of the subtitles got lost in the bottom of the frame or were washed out by light. Hopefully that's a problem that can be corrected on the DVD.

A shortcoming of sequels is that they try to recreate the exact elements of the original reducing all the elements that made it new, interesting and different down to a formula. The Girl Who Played With Fire seems to fall into this trap.

This adaptation of the second novel in Steig Larsson's riveting Millenium trilogy is a necessarily bloody and violent revelation. When a PhD candidate turns over her dissertation on sex trafficking in Sweden to Millenium Magazine, she and her husband are murdered, execution style. Lisbeth Salander's fingerprints are on the gun and she becomes a fugitive.

Lisbeth has repurposed some of Wennerstrom's fortune and is now financially set. It's a good thing, because she's definitely on the lam. It's not just the police who are after her, either. As her past is revealed, it's clear that Lisbeth has made some deadly enemies.

The phrase heart in mouth aptly describes the final scenes of this movie. It's brutal, violent and compelling. One of the things that makes these movies so effective, is that the actors look real. They're not the glossy, physically perfect characters we get from Hollywood and are so much more believable. As always, the lovely landscapes and cityscapes of Sweden are the backdrop, and the entire experience is breathtaking and memorable.

This isn't a cozy feel-good movie, but it's dynamic cinema. Noomi Rapace is superb, and the supporting actors are pretty wonderful, too. Now that all three movies are out in the US, it's a prime opportunity for a Lisbeth Salander movie marathon, and that would be a day well spent.

Having read all three books (The girl with the dragon tattoo, The girl who played with fire and the girl who kicked the hornets nest) I was apprehensive when I first saw that these three books had been produced as movies. The books were written with such a breadth of narrative, with such am innovative story line, that I doubted that it would translate to screen. I was wrong: in particular the portrayal of the lead character a young woman best described as a furious,indomitable, half mad young lioness of a girl who completely captivates the reader and sweeps you along on her incomprehensible crusade, which, in the end makes perfect sense and is beautifully resolved. Where? I wondered, could they find a young actress to bring this astonishing and novel character to life? They managed it wonderfully well. One of the best recent thrillers and transferred to screen brilliantly. Get all three in the series.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl That Kicked the Hornet's Nest are the best movies I have seen in a long, long time. And it figures it would be foreign films. If you don't like reading subtitles - you need to get over that - foreign films are generally the best. Plus you get the added benefit of hearing the language that is being spoken. Casting was great too. These movies will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I was so tempted to fast forward just to see what was going to happen because it was so intense at times. I can't imagine that the American version will be better - we will see. Lisbeth is such a challenging part - how could anyone do it better? Fastastic - well worth your time to see. You won't be sorry.

You absolutely must see "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" first; this takes off right where that one left off, and is even more exciting than the first. The actress who plays Lisbeth Salander is simply amazing. (You really should read the books first...the movie is great, but you'll get even more out of it if you read the books first.)