The Girl Who Played with Fire [Blu-ray] Review

When last we left Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) at the end of Män som hatar kvinnor, she had made herself a wealthy woman after having saved the day and Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). In “The Girl Who Played with Fire” the situation gets reversed when Salander is accused of a triple murder and it is the investigative journalist who has to come to the aid of the computer hacker, especially once Salander decides to take things into her own hand. Once again we have the collision of both personalities and parallel investigations in this middle part of Stieg Larsson’s triology (and I want to underscore that the three books do indeed constitute a true trilogy and not simply the first three books in a series that will never be finished). It is certainly interesting to see a movie in a theater that is being projected from a DVD, but, hey, that is how things are in the Zenith City when it comes to seeing foreign films. We take what we can get any way we can and we learn to like it.

I was in a position where as soon as I finished reading “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” I was able to watch the movie version, at which point I started reading “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and only had to wait a day and a half after I finished it to see this film. Consequently, I am looking at “Flickan som lekte med elden” more as an adaptation of Larsson’s novel than as a movie that stands on its own simply because that is not my perspective. I think this is a better adapation of the novel than the first film, mainly because the second novel is more streamlined than the first, which basically means “Män som hatar kvinnor” was at a disadvantage because even at two and a half hours in length it was going to have to jettison a lot of what happened in the novel. They also found a way of fast forwarding the main plot line by having Salander shadow Blomkvist’s investigation on his computer. Of course there are some short cuts in this 2009 Swedish film, but nothing that drastically reconceptualized the story. Whether this is true because of the differences in the first two novels, or because this time around both the screenwriter (Jonas Frykberg) and the director (Daniel Alfredson) are different, I cannot say. But the important thing is that I was not as annoyed by the omissions and alterations as the first time around (i.e., they kept all of the violence but cut out a lot of the sex, which significantly gelded Blomkvist’s character).

Readers of the novel have a big advantage over those whose exposure to these characters is only through the cinema because a key characteristic of Lisabeth Salander is that she rarely talks and when she does she is not inclined to reveal what she is thinking. But as we know from reading the novels, she thinks a lot, and while it is not the way the rest of us think in a world where the sky is (usually) blue, it is our key way of accessing the peculiar world in which she sees herself living. Having read that book the same week I saw the film meant I was certainly able to fill in the silences and flesh out the story. I have accepted Rapace and Nyqvist as Salander and Blomqvist, even though I keep thinking Salander should be smaller. The main thing is that Rapace has the requisite look in her eyes when her character visually dissects people. I find Nyqvist to be perfectly cast, and as much as I like Daniel Cragi’s James Bond, I wonder if he will be able to soften up enough to capture the characters as well in the upcoming Americanization of these Swedish films. My major concern would be that Alfredson’s direction is rather bland, especially in terms of the last act when we get to what should be the dramatic action sequence. I also noticed that the film goes a bit beyond the end of the novel, into the beginning of “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” but in some ways that hint at some more streamlining. We shall see.

The Girl Who Played with Fire [Blu-ray] Overview

Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. A researcher and a Millennium journalist about to expose the truth about the sex trade in Sweden are brutally murdered and Salander’s prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and violent behavior makes her an official danger to society. Mikael Bloomkvist, Salander’s friend and Millennium’s publisher, is alone in his belief of Salander’s innocence. Digging deeper, Bloomkvist unearths evidence of implicating highly placed members of Swedish Society-as well as shocking details about Salander’s past. He is desperate to get to her before she is cornered-but no one can find her anywhere.

The Girl Who Played with Fire [Blu-ray] Specifications

The toughest chick in Sweden returns to action in The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second film adaptation of the late author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy novels. That would be Lisbeth Salander, once again played with quiet, feral intensity by Noomi Rapace. As Larsson’s readers and anyone who saw the first film (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, also released in 2010) knows, Lisbeth is small in stature but big trouble for any man who crosses her–after all, this is the woman who set her father on fire after he abused her mother and later, after being released from a mental institution, took extreme revenge on her legal guardian after he brutally assaulted her (those scenes are briefly revisited for the enlightenment of those who missed the earlier film). Also back is investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), Lisbeth’s erstwhile lover and partner in solving the Dragon Tattoo mystery. When two of his young colleagues are killed while at work on a story about sex trafficking, followed shortly by the murder of the aforementioned guardian, Salander is the prime suspect. But Mikael is sure of her innocence; in fact, he’s convinced she’s the next victim, leading to a tangled tale in which Lisbeth learns more about her family and its very dark secrets than she ever wanted to know. The story is compelling, if a bit slow to take shape, and director Daniel Alfredson, taking over for Niels Arden Oplev, skillfully sustains the mystery and tension (there are also doses of nudity and violence, the latter much more graphic than the former). But Lisbeth isn’t on screen nearly as much this time, and her relationship with Blomkvist, so central to Dragon Tattoo, is almost an afterthought. Still, The Girl Who Played with Fire will certainly whet fans’ appetites for the next installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest; and considering the overall class and quality of these Swedish productions, one shudders to think how they’ll turn out in the inevitable American versions, the first of which is due in 2011, with Daniel Craig as Blomkvist. –Sam Graham

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Customer Reviews

What are we missing? – Mr. T. A. Maurice – Essex,England
‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ has a Run Time of 152 minutes,and ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire’ 129 minutes.
In Sweden,all three films have been issued on DVD,and Blu-Ray,with a Run Time of 186 minutes.
Do Studios/Distributors think viewers have limited attention spans that so much of a film should be edited out?

Not quite as good as “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – McGillicutty – The Sooner Nation
The second of the Stieg Larson “Milleneum” series, “The Girl That Played With Fire” is solid, fine entertainment. It does not however, live up to the originality and suspense of the predecessor, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”.

I do not want to “spoil” the film, so I’ll keep the plot description brief. Living abroad, Lisbeth Salander (Noomie Rapace, who repeats her great performance from “Dragon Tattoo”) returns to Sweden to catch up on some “old business”. Meanwhile her estwhile lover and head of “Milleneum” magazine Mikael Blomkvist (a fine Michael Nyqvist) has just hired a young reporter who’s research into Stockholm’s sex trade spills over into a triple homicide with Lisbeth as the prime suspect.

The overall plot is okay and somewhat interesting, there are some very good scenes and impressive visuals (especially a structure set on fire in the woods). And the pacing which seemed pitch-perfect in “Tattoo” lags somewhat in “Fire”. It didn’t help that the subtitles were faint and almost impossible to read during scenes with a bright background. It made following the plot more difficult, but not impossible. Hopefully this will be corrected in the DVD version.

Perhaps the most controversial point is the ending which left many patrons of the theater I was at rather dismayed. I can understand their reaction, but this is the second of a three-part series. The final film to be released in the US later this year. So in that context I think the ending was perfectly fine.

As with “Tattoo”, this film contains nudity, violence, gore, and has a rather racey sex scene that does stay within the “R” rating. Although “Fire” can stand on it’s own, I do recommend viewing the “Dragon Tattoo” first as it does help in getting into “Fire”.

I can say that Rapace’s performance will make whoever plays Lisbeth in the upcoming “American” version very hard to match. She is a true talent, although I must add that the character of Lisbeth is one of the best we’ve seen in films for quite a while.

I was not disappointed with “The Girl Who Played With Fire”, but it could’ve been better. Perhaps the third film will live up to the promise of the first.

The girl full of fire – E. A Solinas – MD USA
The late Stieg Larsson centered his Millennium Trilogy around cruelty towards women — and the movie adaptations don’t hold back either.

The second movie of the trilogy, “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” is a tightly wound thriller that is almost as good as the first. It lacks some of the raw, wild, dark energy, but it tangles together some razor-sharp social commentary (sex trafficking) with car chases and conspiracies. Best of all, it still has brilliant performances by Michael Nyqvist and Noome Rapace.

A year after “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” Millennium magazine has a new reporter — Dag Svensson (Hans Christian Thulin) and his girlfriend are doing reports on sex trafficking and prostitution. But then Mikael (Nyqvist) finds both of them dead in their apartment, and Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) — the cruel “guardian” who raped Lisbeth — has been brutally shot in the head.

Since Lisbeth (Rapace) just returned to Stockholm (and threatened to shoot Bjurman), she becomes the No. 1 suspect in all three murders. Even though, y’know, she had no motive for two of them.

Of course, Mikael doesn’t believe that she did it — especially since a hostile blond giant is going around beating up anyone (a trainer, a casual girlfriend) who might know Lisbeth’s whereabouts. As Lisbeth goes on her own dark mission, she tells Mikael that he should look for someone named “Zala.” But when Mikael starts hunting for information on this mystery man, he also learns more about Lisbeth’s dark past…

Lisbeth Salander was something of a mystery in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” — we knew she was troubled, a brilliant hacker, and had been in a psych ward. But “The Girl Who Played With Fire” rips away all that mystery and shows us where Lisbeth Salander came from, and how she became a lonely, punky avenging angel. It’s pretty nasty, and it ends on a cliffhanger (for crying out loud!).

The biggest problem with this story is that it lacks the raw, primal energy that made the first movie so vibrant. But it’s still a tightly-wound thriller with plenty of unpolished fighting, bloody violence, and some moments of bleak humor (Lisbeth “renting” a car after shoving the clerk in a locker). The most disturbing parts are undeniably the flashbacks to Lisbeth’s past, both with her family and in a psych ward (depicted in a surreal, blurry-white nightmare).

And it’s all wound around more unpleasant aspects of modern Swedish society, centering on cruelty towards women — sex trafficking in a modern country, and the evil “Zala’s” ability to get away with anything he wanted.

And while Nyqvist does a good job here, the real spotlight here is on Noome Rapace. This woman is brilliant — all lean wildcat energy, haunted eyes and half-hidden pain. While Lisbeth seems to have healed a little from her past experiences (she seems more open and friendly), there’s still a river of darkness flowing just under the surface, and Rapace does a particularly good job when Lisbeth goes a-hunting for the bad guys.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” doesn’t have the spark of the first movie, but it still has an electric brilliance and scathing social exploration. Too bad we have to wait so long for the finale!

Buy The Girl Who Played with Fire [Blu-ray]

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 20, 2010 22:00:07