The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

So the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy comes to its conclusion with ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest’ or to give it its Swedish title ‘Luftslottet Som Sprängdes’ which translates literally and badly as ‘The Air Castle That Was Blown Up’. It seems that in Swedish an ‘Air Castle’ is what we would call a ‘Pipe Dream’. With that info the title starts to make more sense.

The film picks up exactly from where the second one left off and because of that it’s kind of important to have seen that film. Preferably you need to have read the books because again there’s quite a lot of unexplained stuff going on.

Our heroine Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has somehow survived being shot in the head, as well as in the hip, and is now in hospital. Just down the corridor is another patient, the man who tried to kill her, her father Alexander Zalachenko. He’s having an axe removed from his skull, which is where she left it. Amazingly neither of them has a police guard. So it’s not difficult for the clandestine group inside the secret police, which we now know as ‘The Section’, to attempt to assassinate them both. They manage with Zalachenko but by more chance than anything they fail to get to Salander.



The film then follows Salander's rehabilitation process and also the preparation for her impending trail where she will charged with attempted murder. The same powers that be, who locked her in a psychiatric institution at the age of twelve, are hell bent on returning her there.



Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) meanwhile is preparing a special issue of ‘Millennium’ magazine exposing the whole shady lot of them and in the process hoping to exonerate Salander.



What follows is a complex web of intricate plot lines and characters, which is why you need the background story. Many people muck in together to help her; her friendly doctor is on side, as is Blomkvist’s sister Annika Giannini, an attorney, who is to defend Lisbeth. Her fellow computer hacker Plague even rides in on his white horse to assist. The old men of ‘The Section’ however, have no boundaries and are prepared to do whatever is necessary to silence everyone, prevent exposure of their group and bury their secret forever.



Finally though Salander and Giannini have their moment in court, outsmarting the prosecution and turning the tables on their key witness Lisbeth’s former psychiatric doctor, Dr. Teleborian. That’s quite fun to watch.



Unlike part two, which was all action at the expense of a more meaningful plot, this film is the other way around and most of the action comes towards the end as Salander explores an old factory left to her in her father’s will. That said the suspense of the scene is diluted by knowing that her psychotic half brother is lurking there. The action with the nail gun doesn't disappoint though.

For a film that still sprawls itself over two and a half hours, it is still lacking in detail and I can’t imagine it makes much sense to the casual viewer. Obviously a lot of material had to be cut from each of the books, which are huge tombs, but they have made some odd calls about what to leave in and out. There are also superfluous additions. Scenes added of Neiderman and an unnecessary sub-plot concerning Millennium boss Erika Berger and a stalker that was altered from the book but still left needlessly in the film. It achieved nothing and if the minutes were so valuable, why waste them?

Both of the last two films had a badly cut feel about them and when I dig deeper I find out possibly the reason why. All three films were intended as a six part mini-series but were then cut down to a reasonable film length. With that information, it begins to make sense why it doesn't make sense. I look forward to seeing the DVD's of the full versions sometime.

Neither this film nor 'The Girl Who Played With Fire, were as compelling as ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ but it's not bad. Overall the series has been a little disappointing and for once I'm actually looking forward to seeing Hollywood’s take on these. Not all car chases I hope. However Hollywood’s Salander, Rooney Mara, has a lot to live up to. The films may have been a bit messy but Noomi Rapace has been outstanding throughout.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

'The Girl Who Played with Fire', is the second instalment in the Millennium trilogy and the sequel to 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', which was released earlier this year.

One year on from the conclusion of the first story, Mikael Blomkvist is back at work at Millennium magazine when a young journalist and his researcher girlfriend approach the magazine with a meticulously researched exposé of Eastern European sex traffickers which implicates several people in high office.

Meanwhile Lisbeth Salander is drifting around the globe, eventually returning to Sweden with a bang. When the journalist and his girlfriend working on the trafficking story are killed, Salander’s prints are on the gun. Then Lisbeth's hated guardian Nils Bjurman is shot dead as well. It’s not looking good for the dragon girl.



She is accused of murder and Blomkvist embarks on a quest to exonerate her but she’s not totally helpful at clearing her own name. No one can even find Salander, who hides out in her plush new apartment that no one, especially not the authorities know about.

Shadowy characters linked to Salander’s past go to her registered address but Salander has sublet the place to her friend and occasional lover the kickboxing Miriam Wu. They kidnap Wu and leave her in the hands of Ronald Niedermann, a thug with a bizarre medical condition called ‘congenital analgesia’ that means he feels no pain, oh and he’s built like a brick shithouse as well. He beats her up in the quest for information she does not have. It falls to a friend of Salander’s, a real life boxer called Paolo Roberto, played by the man himself, to rescue her in a bare knuckle fist fight with Niedermann.



Now, stop right there and just hang on a minute or two. All this excitement happens pretty quickly in the film, whereas it took weeks of perseverance with the book for me to get this far. I feel cheated already. Lots of background and character development have already been skipped. It’s also like Salander has immediately been presumed innocent, that’s not how it was. Out go the dynamics within the police force, and most of the murder investigation. Even the sex trafficking angle is only touched upon very lightly.

Ok, so it’s always difficult when converting a book to film to decide how much to leave out and what to focus on but I think they got this one wrong. The first film was a genuine whodunit, whereas this time they’ve removed the ‘who’ because it’s clear who ‘dunit’ almost from the start. This causes the film to lack substance and become far less interesting, even the mysterious ‘Zala’ suddenly does not seem that mysterious.

There’s no sustained tension. There can’t be when the film sped along at such a frightening brisk pace. So much so that Salander‘s escape from being buried alive was treated so flippantly it was almost comedic. It’s probably my own fault that I’m un-enthralled by the story because I’ve broken my golden rule of seeing the film of a book I’ve read.



That said, it is faithful to the book, but only as far as it goes and that's a synopsis of the main events from the book. There are so many elements that are hinted at but not explored. Everything else has been jettisoned to cram what’s left into two hours. In fact the film looks like it’s been cut. Why not take another half an hour and flesh it out.



Oddly the first film choose to discard Blomkvist’s relationship with Erika Berger, whereas this second film includes it but with little explanation. A change of director clearly brought a change of approach.

On the plus side, the action is riveting and it still a good film, highly entertaining with Noomi Rapace brilliant again as Salander.

Perhaps I should just read less.