Here I am still catching up with reviews from the March Movie Madness Month. Funnily, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest is the first of the movies in the Millennium Trilogy that I saw in the cinema, because I watched the first one (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) on the plane, and the second one (The Girl Who Played With Fire) on blu-ray1.
I still haven’t gotten around to reading the books yet, but at this point in the trilogy the plot elements and character developments edited out to fit the story to the cinematic medium became obvious, and put quite a strain on my ability to suspend disbelief.
A few examples:
- What was the point of The Section? Their motivation wasn’t ever clear to me. As near as I could tell they were a secret mens’ club designed to protect Zalaschenko from being revealed to the public, but to what purpose after all these years I cannot fathom;
- Niedermann, whose actions in hunting down his half-sister seemed to lack any motivation at all. Was he merely robot given orders to kill that outlived its master or was he somehow also working in the interests of The Section?
- What was the deal with Lisbeth’s transformation from moderate goth to full punk goth? Although visually compelling, there’s no discernable reason for it.
But as far as the core theme is concerned – the abuse of women at the hands of (dirty, corrupt) men – the movie still manages to deliver a satisfying conclusion, as comeuppance arrives to all those who deserved it, and Lisbeth preserves her dignity right throughout without giving her nemeses the satisfaction of lashing out emotionally or otherwise.
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1 Not reviewed here on GeekReads, because I’ve got plenty of source material to keep me busy as it is without also reviewing every movie I watch at home on telly as well!