Noomi Rapace & Michael Nyqvist

The appeal of "The Girl Who Played With Fire" is simple. It's watching the superhumanly resilient bisexual computer hacker, played by Noomi Rapace, taser a would-be rapist in the groin and scoot off on her motorcycle. This is how avenging angels roll in Stockholm. They avenge, they investigate dark deeds of the past, they brood, they download documents, then smoke, then brood, then drink coffee and then light up again.

Distributed in the U.S. by Chicago's Music Box Films, "The Girl Who Played With Fire" follows the global commercial success of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" ($100 million in gross receipts, a healthy $8.8 million of which came from its recent U.S. run) and will be followed this fall by the American release of the Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy's final installment, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest."

Millions have devoured the books, published after Larsson's death. The second film adaptation should please enthusiasts of the first. Despite a new director and adapter, it's very much the same result. Both films are crudely effective, extremely well-acted exploitation jobs, shaking their head at the evil that men do to women one minute, reveling in their comeuppance the next.

Rapace remains the chief asset. In the first film, her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander generated considerable and well-earned attention. Coiled like a spring, Rapace worked well with Michael Nyqvist (the Swedish Larry Hagman, but more sincere), who plays the investigative journalist on the trail of neo-Nazis rotting his homeland from within.

In "The Girl Who Played With Fire," Lisbeth -- framed for the murder of journalists exposing a sex-trafficking ring -- must clear her name and, with the writer played by Nyqvist, discover the truth behind the tale of Lisbeth's miserable father, whom we see in flames in repeated flashback. People eat this stuff up, especially if the plots involve Old Testament-style vengeance executed with a theatrical flair. (At one point Lisbeth, confronting a sleazy john, is made up like a demented Harlequin.) The second film lingers less determinedly on the degradation of Lisbeth and concentrates more on moving the narrative furniture around. The relationship between the main characters is the glue holding the balsa wood together.

Rapace and Nyqvist could not be better. For the films themselves to really fly as cinematic pulp fiction, though, some middle ground between the world's worst venalities and the world's most righteous vigilantes would at least have to be acknowledged.

 

     RSS

 

"The Girl Who Played With Fire" Movie Trailer

 

more MOVIE REVIEWS ...

Recent Movie Reviews - Films in Theaters

 

Annette Bening & Julianne Moore

The Kids Are All Right
Annette Bening & Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right

Doctor Nic (Annette Bening) and her longtime partner, Jules (Julianne Moore), have two teenagers from the same sperm donor. When the kids make contact with the donor behind the moms' backs, Mark Ruffalo's easygoing restaurateur Paul shows up to stir this family's pot a bit. Bening and Moore have never been looser on screen, and Ruffalo is the perfect foil

 

Despicable Me

Despicable Me
Steve Carell & Jason Segel in Despicable Me

An agreeable jumble, the animated feature 'Despicable Me' sells its 3-D in ways you wouldn't call sophisticated or witty. With a heavy Slavic dialect, Steve Carell voices the 'Me' of the title, a sallow-complexioned baddie named Gru, who plans to steal the moon by way of a 'shrink ray.' Along the way he grapples with his mother (Julie Andrews) and his nemesis, Vector (Jason Segel)

 

Adrien Brody & Laurence Fishburne

Predators
Adrien Brody & Laurence Fishburne in Predators

For a while, Predators is a worthy successor, opening with a motley multinational crew of thugs dropping from the sky, having free-fallen from places unknown -- Adrien Brody's growling mercenary; Topher Grace's befuddled physician; Laurence Fishburne's wily survivalist -- an impressive cast worth having in your killer-monster movie any day

 

 

MPAA rating: R (for disturbing violent content including rape, grisly images, sexual material, nudity and language).

Running time: 2:09.

Cast: Noomi Rapace (Lisbeth Salander); Michael Nyqvist (Mikael Blomkvist); Annika Hallin (Annika Giannini); Per Oscarsson (Holger Palmgren); Lena Endre (Erika Berger).

Credits: Directed by Daniel Alfredson; written by Jonas Frykberg, based on Stieg Larsson's novel; produced by Soren Staermose. A Music Box Films release. In Swedish with English subtitles.