Movie Info
Movie Name: The Girl Who Played with Fire
Studio: Yellow Bird Films
Genre(s): Drama/Mystery/Suspense
Release Date(s): September 18, 2009
MPAA Rating: R
Me with a gun…a bad combination.
Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is back and now she’s being hunted. When her legal guardian and a couple is killed, Salander is the police’s lead suspect. Now Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) must prove that Salander is innocent, but finds himself deep into Salander’s past and learns the feelings she is hiding.
The Girl Who Played with Fire (or the Swedish title Flickan som lekte med elden) is the second in Stieg Larsson best selling Millennium Trilogy after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was directed by Daniel Alfredson and well received but also was kind of seen as a step down.
My undercover look is what I call “Frat Boy Chic”
The problem with The Girl Who Played with Fire is that there isn’t really much of a mystery to it. That was part of the fun of the first movie. It felt like a Silence of the Lambs with high stakes and crazy killers. In The Girl Who Played with Fire, there is a crazy killer Niedermann (Micke Spreitz) and Zalachenko’s story also is crazy, but it doesn’t come any way in coming close to the killer of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. These killers aren’t as extreme (and are a bit more realistic). They are crazy, but not as fun.
The other problem with The Girl Who Played with Fire is Lisbeth Salander. Noomi Rapace is fantastic, and it isn’t a problem with her acting. Rapace steals every scene she’s in and it is always a bummer when it goes back to the Blomkvist storyline. The problem with Salander in this novel is that it takes away a bit of her mystery. It is fun in the first movie just having this character show up, act strange, and leave with a big payoff. Salander’s past unravels in The Girl Who Played with Fire and I’d rather just wonder why she is odd instead of actually knowing.
Wake up buddy, I’m back!
The movie looks good and the story is strong, but it just isn’t the first movie (or book). It is worth seeing and it is very smart that the movies were made quickly, and released quickly to capitalize on the books’ success rather than dragging them out for years. It will be interesting to see how the American versions of the film will be since they are being more spread out…Hopefully, the remake won’t ruin the original trilogy.
Related Links:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (2009)
