I finally got around to seeing The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third--and final--adaptation of Steig Larsson's Millenium Trilogy. Don't get excited. These are Swedish versions of the books, made in the country of origin of Larsson, with the same excellent cast and released around the world to pretty much universal acclaim.
On second thought, DO get excited, because all three adaptations are excellent. Filmed one right after the other, they're very true to the source material. I actually liked this third one better than the second (The Girl Who Played with Fire), even though I sort of liked the second book better than the first or third.
The first book--The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--and its subsequent movie (and the American version being made now by director David Fincher and starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara) is a very different animal than the two sequels. It introduces us to Lisbeth Salander, the anti-social and abused hacker with a photographic memory and journalist Mikael Blomkvist, another damaged soul. They investigate a decades-old murder mystery and in the process, the older reporter Blomkvist slightly thaws the wrapped in protective ice Salander. The second and third books are all about Salander: who she is and how she got that way. The third gets bogged down with an unnecessary subplot where Erika Berger--Blomkvist's publisher and sometimes lover--leaves Millenium Magazine to take a job at a Swedish newspaper. Add to that the introduction of numerous characters, especially police and legal workers, and the book is kind of a sprawling mess. An immensely readable one, but a mess nonetheless.
By the time Hornet's Nest came out, the world had pretty much fallen in love with these characters. At this point, with Larsson dead, a lot of readers would probably pick up a fourth book even if Lisbeth and Mikael read the Stockholm phone book out loud to each other. But I digress. The third film in the Swedish series continues the saga with this "final" chapter in which Salander finally gets figured out and gets her much-needed vengeance. Noomi Rapace (pictured above) is wonderful as Lisbeth, capturing her every facet from the books. It's hard to visualize anyone else in the role. Today I saw a few photos of Rooney Mara in the American version and there's one big difference: Mara looks scary as Salander, whereas Rapace looks beautiful. This is almost the opposite of what you'd expect--the Hollywood version would go out of its way to glamorize the character, you would think--but I think it's because Rapace is just plain beautiful to start off with and its hard to cover that up. (Hollywood has fallen for her, too: She's in Sherlock Holmes 2 and Ridley Scott's "maybe it's a prequel to Alien, maybe it's not" new sci-fi epic, Prometheus.)
Larsson made a fatal error in the second and third books, I think. He keeps Blomkvist and Salander apart. While I was never hoping for a star-crossed romance between the two (they both use each other mercilessly, even for sex), keeping them apart for close to 1,000 pages--and through two books and movies--was an error in judgment. The movie version, almost doggishly faithful, doesn't correct that, nor should it. But this third movie is just as true to its origins as the other two. If you're looking for a great mini marathon--with subtitles, I must warn you--try all three of these films back-to-back-to-back. If you loved the books, you'll love the movies.
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