There was something about the first cinematic instalment of late author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy that made ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ that little bit better than most crime-related mysteries. That film felt fresh, frighteningly cold in both its storytelling and setting, and it gave us a ridiculously intriguing female protagonist that remained stunningly elusive throughout. That small, leather-wearing, short black-haired cyberpunk with a history of violence and sexual abuse returns here, and when embodied by a little-known Swedish actress named Noomi Rapace, Lisbeth Salander ensures that at least whilst she’s on screen, ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’ feels as distinctively funky as the film that preceded it.
It’s a shame, then, that this second effort in the series somehow loses the magic of its predecessor in every other respect. The solid, stern-looking investigative journalist that Lisbeth accompanied on a project in the first film – Mikael Blomkvist – returns too, but now he’s working alone to help clear her name of a triple homicide charge, whilst she goes on the run and retraces her past Bourne-style in an attempt to uncover who is setting her up.
The problem is that the list of new names is so lengthy and the strands of plot so convoluted that the film, in attempting to remain loyal to the lengthy novel, just ends up displaying an awfully messy bundle of crimes. Filmmakers don’t have the privilege of detail that writers do, and when they fail to remember this most basic of lessons, the result is muddy water of the kind so clearly present here. When added to the dull, television-thriller quality of the visuals, warning alerts start sounding loud and clear.
There are mild sources of interest, most notably in the shape of a new blonde, block-like German villain. He’s like a physical and mental fusion of the Coen brothers’ gormless serial killer Gaear Grimsrud in ‘Fargo’, and the similarly stoical, silent and terrifying Anton Chigurh of ‘No Country for Old Men’. The only difference is that the guy on the murdering rampage here has a rare genetic defect meaning he never feels any pain – not even when Lisbeth uses her notorious electric zapper on his balls.
But ultimately all this falls far too short of the mark, and is a serious let-down compared to the first film of the series. It doesn’t go over old ground, but it does cover new ground in a bad way. This is without even mentioning the premature ending, which fails to tie up one too many loose ends and demands psychic abilities of its audience. After ‘Dragon Tattoo’, there were good reasons for skepticism about the forthcoming Hollywood remakes of the trilogy, but after seeing ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’, nobody can doubt that there’s a good possibility that they might actually do a better job.
