Review - The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009), R, 129 minutes - It's been a while since my last post due to the chaos of trying to get moved into the house. It has been a slow process, but I'm making headway. So after too much of a delay, here's my latest review:

I had been patiently waiting for The Girl Who Played With Fire to come to the Grandin Theatre back in Roanoke, but was pleasantly surprised this weekend in SC at my parent's house when I learned that it was playing at a theater about 30 minutes down the road. Not knowing when it will show up back home, I was able to sneak away this afternoon to check it out!

The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second installment in the Swedish film trilogy based on the Millennium trilogy of books (the first of which was The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). If you have not either seen the first film or read the books then don't bother taking two hours out of your day checking this out because you will be completely lost.

If you have however, it continues the Millennium story on the big screen relatively well. The first half hour or so of The Girl Who Played With Fire deviates quite a bit from the beginning of the book. Mainly it skips some details that are much more easily read via the written word in favor of advancing to the meat of the plot.

Noomi Rapace, who does an amazing job once again bringing the character of Lisbeth Salander to life. Lisbeth speaks more in the first half hour than she did in the entire first film I think. More of her dark history is explored in this installment and sets up the upcoming third film (The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest - due out in the US later this fall). Michael Nyqvist is also strong again as the co-lead Mikael Blomkvist. If you thought it took quite a while for the two main characters to meet up in the first film, just wait until you see how long it takes this time around. I have been thoroughly amazed by both the books and the films in their ability to advance the story while having the two main characters no where near each other.

The Girl Who Played With Fire isn't quite as well edited as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo which causes the film to seem a bit jumpy in some places. This isn't much of a problem if you have read the books (by Stieg Larsson) as you can fill in the gaps yourself. I think this can mostly be attributed to the change in directors between this and the first film.

Just as with Dragon Tattoo there are a couple of disturbing scenes as well as references to the previous film's graphic scenes. None of this should be a shock to those who have read the novels or seen the first film. This flick really is more of the same. I personally highly recommend both the films and the books (disclaimer - I still have about 200 pages left to read of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest). The story is excellent and Noomi Rapace is amazing as the lead actress. For those interested, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is now available on blu-ray and DVD as well as a 'watch it now' on NetFlix.