Film Review: ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire’ Snuffs Out Potential

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Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Movie trilogies often are judged on the strength of their middle chapters. The “Star Wars” franchise wouldn’t have been continually embraced by new generations if “The Empire Strikes Back” hadn’t deepened the characters to such an extent that they became more than mere Jungian archetypes. If “Empire” jettisoned the franchise’s potential, “Attack of the Clones” brought it in for a crash landing.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” is nowhere near the disaster of “Clones,” but considering the international appeal of its source material, the film is a definite letdown. It’s based on the second installment of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy,” which was published posthumously, and gained tremendous popularity with readers worldwide. Larsson was also a journalist with strong antifascist beliefs, and worked at a small publication not unlike the one in his book series. His crime dramas follow an investigative journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, and an antisocial computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, as they piece together various mysteries, some of which reside in themselves.

Read Matt Fagerholm’s full review of “The Girl Who Played With Fire” in our reviews section.

When Blomkvist and Salander teamed up in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” the film version caught fire, largely because of the mesmerizing lead performances from Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace (impeccably cast as Lisbeth). One of the built-in weaknesses with the follow-up is the fact that Nyqvist and Rapace are never allowed to share the screen, since their characters only communicate via e-mail. Without their chemistry to drive the film’s narrative momentum, the story collapses into a series of half-connected crises and exposition-laden plot twists. There’s always something happening onscreen, but the two main protagonists often remain stagnant, and so does the film’s momentum. “Fire” feels like a considerably longer film than “Tattoo,” even though it’s over twenty minutes shorter than its predecessor.

While the first installment centered on a labyrinthine mystery involving a wealthy family with a history of Nazism, “Fire” turns its focus inward on the ominous backstory of Lisbeth, whose deep-seated hatred of abusive men was spawned from a profoundly troubled childhood. A year has passed since she first joined forces with Mikael, and the two allies are brought into each other’s orbit when Lisbeth is wrongly convicted of a triple homicide. Mikael is determined to prove her innocence, and sets out on another whodunit caper, though his role here is conspicuously shortened in favor of an ever-expanding ensemble. There are so many new names and faces that audiences may feel motivated to take notes, or better yet, sketch a map.

Continuing reading for Matt Fagerholm’s full “The Girl Who Played With Fire” review.

The Girl Who Played With Fire
Photo credit: Music Box Films