Review of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009) by Fernando Rafael Q — 14 Jun 2011

After having re-read my reviews of the first two installments of this trilogy, I had to laugh at the fact that I wrote "With these films getting rave reviews while the third and last installment getting the most negative critiques, why do I think I may actually enjoy the final installment over these two?".

And, it is indeed true.

Although for the third time, I was yet again underwhelmed, this Girl just seemed a little more...human...and realistic than the first two, while still being in desperate need of a thing called an "editor" like the first two.

This installment focuses primarily on Lisbeth Salander, her recovery from what happened at the end of "Played with Fire" and her upcoming trial for attempted murder. With a more cohesive story, this installment impressed me more than the first two, while still not blowing me away by no means.

With the one exception of her inexplicable transformation to cyberpunk, Rapace and her character are both strong once again, while Nyqvist doesn't devaite at all in his.

With the trilogy closed in terms of the Swedish film interpretation, it will be very difficult for the upcoming American installments to not improve upon these three films easily without even trying, so with David Fincher at the helm of at least the first, I will most certainly be first in line to see the opening credits of Fincher's film amaze me more than the cumultative seven hours and six minutes of the three original films.