Why am I watching all these non-horror movies? (Unmarked Spoilers)
This sorta sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) is an adaptation of Det som inte dödar oss or The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz. It is the fourth novel in the Millennium series. Yes, we’ve now gone from the first to the fourth. Funnily enough, certain lines imply that at least some of the second and third books happened in this universe.
Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) has been continuing her work as a computer hacker and punishing men who hurt women. One day, Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), a former NSA employee, hires her to steal a MacGuffin he designed, Firefall. Unfortunately, Firefall ends up in the hands of The Spiders, a group of criminals led by Camilla (Sylvia Hoeks), Lisbeth’s sister.
This movie makes a lot of changes to the source material, especially the backstory between the Salander sisters. Instead of being raised by their mother, Agneta, they seemed to have been raised by their gangster father, Alexander Zalanchenko (Mikael Persbrandt). One day Lisbeth decided to escape and begged Camilla to come with her. Camilla refused, however, so Lisbeth went on her own.
Several characters have been either deleted, altered, or had their roles reduced. A plot twist exclusive to the film is that Gabriella Grane (Synnøve Macody Lund), deputy director of the Swedish Security Services, is in bed with Camilla, possibly in more ways than one. There’s a scene that’s shot in a way that makes Grane seem like she was checking out Camilla’s a*s, and later, Camilla holds Grane’s face in an intimate fashion. The latter of which is to kill her, but still.
Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) has gone from the co-lead to a supporting character. He also looks about a decade younger than the other versions. And while Camilla’s primary enforcer is still named Jan Holster (Claes Bang), his status as a giant blonde henchman who frames Lisbeth for murder owes more to Ronald Niedermann. Balder’s son August (Christopher Convery) is still a savant on the spectrum but is much more high-functioning. Lisbeth goes from bitterly hating her sister to clearly loving her, as much as she tries to deny it.
Also, while she’s undeniably a bada*s in the other versions, this movie’s Lisbeth has her skills ratchet up to a James Bond-level. At the same time, there are also moments where the film will have her pick up the idiot ball so that the plot can progress. Like when she takes August back to her hideout but doesn’t take away his cellphone, allowing the villains to track them down.
However, the character with arguably the biggest change is Camilla. In the book, Camilla is a pure evil psychopath who idolized her abusive father and wanted revenge on Lisbeth for ruining her life when Lisbeth crippled him. The film version of Camilla eventually realized that her father was a monster, but her beef with Lisbeth is now that she never came back to save her. All in all, she’s depicted in a much more tragic and sympathetic light.
This movie got trashed by critics and audiences alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, its current score is 39%, with an audience score of 36%. I chalk that up to bitterness over how this is a follow-up to Dragon Tattoo (2011) without the involvement of David Fincher, Rooney Mara, or Daniel Craig because both of those scores seem unnecessarily harsh.
Is this movie as good as either version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Uh no, not at all. It has a much weaker script. You wouldn’t be hard-pressed to start pointing out plot holes. That said, on its own, it’s not that bad a movie. The directing and tone were good, aided by a great score. Foy turned in a good performance, as did Hoeks. It was also better than the book, which rarely happens. I recommend giving The Girl in the Spider’s Web a chance.
Let's Cee a Movie 