The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second film to be released of the Millennium trilogy of movies that are based on the incredibly popular Stieg Larsson books. The first film of the trilogy was the excellent ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’, which was a world wide success and one of my favourite films of this year.
The Girl Who Played With Fire definitely has a lot to live up to and I was hoping for more of the same dark story, gripping plot and wonderful slow burning thriller. Unfortunately The Girl who Played With Fire doesn’t live up to its predecessor’s standards at all although still offering a great complex story, excellent characters and a progression of one of the most intriguing stories in cinema.
Review contains spoilers.
The Girl Who Played With Fire continues a year after the events of Dragon Tattoo. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) returns to Sweden after a self exposed exile living abroad on the money she stole at the end of the previous film. After paying a visit to her legal guardian Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) and threatening him (thankfully not as much as in the first movie) with his gun to ensure he keeps writing nice reports about her behaviour, Lisbeth finds that she’s been accused of the murder of three people, including Bjurman, killed with his handgun containing her finger prints.
Lisbeth finds herself in the middle of a sex-trafficking scandal that is being exposed by Mikael Blomkvist’s (Michael Nyqvist) Millennium magazine and two young researchers that were working on the article who were the two others apparently killed by Lisbeth. The scandal would have exposed a state secret and men high up in the government of participating in violent sex with prostitutes, which is like a red rag to a bull for Lisbeth, so she goes on the run to hunt the men responsible for sex-trafficking whilst Blomkvist heads off to investigate the murders himself to clear Lisbeth’s name before the police catch her. The conclusion of their investigations links everything to one person and reveals a shocking connection to Lisbeth’s disturbing and turbulent past.
The joy of the the first film was its slow burning plot and unwinding investigative story about a presumed murder and the hunt for the killer 40 years after the crime was committed. It surprised me at every turn and was a refreshing film to watch with stunning performances and excellent absorbing story. Where as this part of the trilogy offered an interesting plot about a sex trafficking organisation it really felt like it was the middle part of a bigger story, hinting at a whole lot more to come but was holding back too much as if it was scared of getting into second gear.
Another problem was our two main characters never meet until the final scene, Lisbeth and Mikael’s chemistry in the first movie is what made it work so well and the break in that connection in this second film lets it down a great deal but also allows them to have their own story which works brilliantly for Lisbeth Salander but gives Mikael a smaller, slightly understated story.
The story of sex trafficking took a back seat just as it felt it was going to explode and it deviated towards a story of a government conspiracy that felt so separate from the plot I invested in in the opening 30-40 minutes. It’s clear why it changes direction for the film to conclude within 2 hours but I was really enjoying the story of our characters examining the sex trafficking scandal. Additionally, It felt much longer than the first film even though it was 20+ minutes shorter in running time, it seemed to miss out on vital plot details to explain the story in more detail and seemed to drag at times and would have been quite a dull film if it wasn’t for the excellent cast and characters that explode into life at vital moments.
Noomi Rapace again puts in a performance as Lisbeth Salander that is just stunning, It’s a character that will be remembered as one of the strongest and well defined female roles of this decade and I pity the actress that has to fill Rapace’s shoes in the Fincher remake. She completely dominates the screen and shows a genuine mental instability and a level of brutality that is well beyond her small size. One scene has Lisbeth taking on two huge biker guys who intend to capture her and she handles them with such vigour that you just can’t help enjoy her performance and fully route for her.
There are a few other random throw away, one dimensional roles thrown in to progress the story but one character does stand out, a large almost bond villain colossus of guy who is one of the main protagonist bad guys called Ronald Niedermann played giantly by Mikael Spreitz. His role is key to leading the investigation to its conclusion and I loved every minute of his almost muted performance and great intimidating presence.
Overall the Girl Who Played With Fire is a slower burning thriller that does progress the story nicely, but as a film it struggles to explain a lot of the story in detail but I’m sure readers of the book will be able to fill in the gaps better than first time vistors to this section of the trilogy. A good film with great performances, just a little bit underwhelming in the shadow of the excellent first film.
The Girl Who Played With Fire is out 27th August
