Review of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009) by Amanda C — 03 May 2011

Well this series started with a bang and went out with a whimper. This is a overly long and plodding film. There's too much unnecessary explanation about the event of the previous films and the few action sequences are tired and lack any kind of intensity. The chemistry of the leads that was so electric in the first film, is squander like Girl Who Played With Fire and even worse Noomi Rapace is reduced to sitting staring into space. Gone is the resilience and strength that she had so wonderfully in the first two films. The end confrontation with Neidermann is ridiculous and tedious and for most of it reduces Lisbeth to a mouse being chased. The whole film is too static.

This film would have been better served by a reduced run time, forcing the filmmaker to pick and choose what they could include and what needed to be cut out. Alfredson wasn't helped by the source material, which while it moves along at a quicker pace than the film, is still slow compared to the previous instalments. Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest would have greatly benefited from the filmmaker trusting in the intelligence of the audience to infer rather than spelling it all out.

It's not a horrible film, just a tad overly tedious. The cinematography is nice and there is some great location shooting, however the costuming gets a bit ridiculous near the end with Lisbeth and the Mohawk. Over all I'd say watch Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and leave it at that.