The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Today I saw The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist.

Never has a film so reminded me of the book—but in this case, that's not for the better.

In this third installment of the wildly popular Stieg Larsson series, our heroine Lisbeth (Rapace) is in the hospital recovering from injuries sustained during a fight with her evil father and half-brother. The half-brother has escaped into the wilderness, and the father is in stable condition just down the hall from her.

The police are after her (for the attempted murder of her father), her former psychiatrist is after her (to help the prosecutors have her committed), her lawyer is after her (to sort it all out) and her doctor is thankfully a compassionate man, who listens to the right folks and pardons her from too much harassment while she heals.

Meanwhile, Millennium editor Erica Berger (Lena Endre) has been receiving threats at her home and at work, which leads Mikael (Nyqvist) to need to save not one but two damsels in distress.

If they only would just get on with it.

That's what kept going through my mind as I read the novel and that's what was going through my mind today as I was watching this film (it's about an hour too long).

Sure, we need some exposition, but not two hours of it before we get to the meat of the story.

The performances here are predictably great, but the actors barely had anything to do. Courtroom scenes are known for their tension, and with the exception of one 'reveal' here, they are nothing of the sort.

The film was closure for the trilogy, but a disappointing, lengthy one at that.

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