Review of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009) by Jonny B — 03 Jun 2012

On reflection, The Millennium Trilogy (films) must have done author of the books Steig Larsson proud. While The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest may be a few brushes off matching the first two films' achievements, it is still a very fine watch, if you are able to adapt to the change of genre.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl who played with Fire were both reasonable fast paced action thriller which left audiences on the edge of their seats. This was found slightly more in the sequel; the first played out as more of a chemistry built introduction (between Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyquvist).

On the trilogy's last outing we begin only a short period of time from where the second movie's climax took place. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is in a critically painful state in hospital, alongside her despicably evil father Alexander Zalachenko (Georgi Staykov), after they violently brawled om his farmland.

Meanwhile, Mikael Bloomkvist (Michael Nyquvist) is pulling out all the stops in a bid to clear Lisbeth's name as after she is removed from hospital, awaits a jail sentence having been set up and misinterpreted for various crimes.

Rather than fast paced thriller, the movie follows the books plot line and the majority of the film entails lots of dialogue regarding Lisbeth and anyone associated with her; expanding on this and we are seeing a stronger mould of personality for all of the characters in the script.

Overall, acting was great again from Rapace and Nyquvist despite spending little on screen time together which left a gap in the chemistry shared. There was a slow pace and a lack of action but the dialogue, especially in the court room was brilliant, the best in the trilogy - not to mention the most satisfying!