Movie Review: 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' is a standard thriller on autopilot

The Girl Who Played With Fire (Rated R: for disturbing violent content including rape, grisly images, sexual material, nudity and language) Dir: Daniel Alfredson, Country: Sweden

This film is set to be released in U.S. theaters on July 9th. For Orange County, it will play at University Town Center 6 in Irvine.

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) return in this sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. As Mikael and his journalists investigate a sex-trafficking ring, three people wind up dead, and Lisbeth is accused of the murders (as her fingerprints are found on the weapon). While Mikael works to clear her name, Lisbeth is on the run while seeking personal vengeance on the one (from her dark past) who framed her.

This film is in many levels beneath the first film. The film continues where The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo left off. It has been about two years since Lisbeth and Mikael parted ways.  Much of the first film's strength derived from the chemistry between the leads.  Much of this film, however, has Mikael and Lisbeth working separately, each of them dealing with people in their own social circle. This causes the two characters to be reacquainted with their old flames. Many side characters make an appearance, yet they are not expanded upon in great detail nor do they figure deeply into the plot. Lisbeth’s lesbian scene with her ex-lover feels rather unnecessary and tacked-on. Any romance that was built up between Mikael and Lisbeth in the first film is hardly mentioned this time around. Majority of the film's focus is on the unveiling of the details of Lisbeth’s dark past, which ultimately leads to the person who framed her. The sex-trafficking plot is only touched upon.

Compared to its predecessor, this film is not as dark and serious, and it feels more cliché.  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was certainly more original, if hard to watch (Review is here).  It was effective in atmosphere, in characterization, story, pacing, and how it engaged our sympathy and attention.  With Niels Arden Oplev's taut direction, it was a stomach-churning thriller, particularly helped by the fact that we cared what happened to these characters. The plot was also engaging.  This film's pacing is uneven, many scenes feel tossed together, and the characters feel generic and simplified.  While Lisbeth is mainly focused on her vengeful quest, she lacks complexity--the interesting elements are mostly when the film reiterates through flashbacks what we already knew from the first film. Noomi Rapace is still good in her role, making the most with her subtle expressions and movements. Michael Nyqvist as Blomkvist is given little to do in the script, and is no longer the serious, driven journalist from the first film. He feels relegated to more of a side character type of role. It felt as if the filmmakers were merely capitalizing on the popularity of the first film and had decided to go into autopilot.

Some of the parts that do work are occasional fight scenes involving a tall, invincible, mute and blonde thug who is targeting Lisbeth and the people around her. And, he cannot feel any pain. Yeah, he may be a cliché, but he’s still creepy. The eventual unveiling of the people of Lisbeth’s past is also interesting and adds a bit of depth to Lisbeth’s ongoing journey in the trilogy.

As creepy as some of them may look, the bad guys in this film are painfully incompetent, robbing much of the thrills and intelligence from the film. One example is how the bad guys never make sure a protagonist is dead before he leaves (they make this mistake twice). There is also a tiresome cliché in the film where the bad guy, after knocking the protagonists unconscious inside a barn, locks the door, soaks the place in oil, sets the whole barn on fire, and then walks away. Now, wouldn’t it have been much easier just to kill them while unconscious and not worry about possibly attracting attention by having a big ol’ barn engulfed in flames, with orange smoke you can see from miles and miles away by the neighbors? Like clockwork, the protagonists do indeed escape through the back window (as they weren’t tied up or anything). 

Overall, I found this film disappointing, given all the potential laid out by the first film. Rife with clichés, this film was closer to an average B-movie. The plot didn’t engage me because many side-plots were not effectively followed upon. The pacing was off, and dragging at times. New characters appear, but they don’t really contribute significantly to the story, and they’re soon gone. Even some of the “shocking” plot twists feel like something from a soap opera.  Well, there's another film after this one called The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest.  Perhaps it's an improvement.  As for The Girl Who Played With Fire, I give  ** out of **** stars.