The Girl Who Played With Fire - Movie No. 14

The Girl who played with fire

Director: Daniel Alfredson

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist and Lena Endre

Year: 2009

Watched: 12/1/11

What the Fudge is it?

Lisbeth is a spunky bisexual hacker. Blomkvist is a disgruntled editor. Together they solve shit. The 2nd film of 3. After a young journalist gets murdered for trying to expose a sex trafficking operation Lisbeth becomes the prime suspect. Blomkvist and Salander search for the truth and try to clear her name. Also contains a big unstoppable blond bastard!

What I Thought.....

My fist encounter of this film wasn't the best.....I had just finished watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on Bluray, bored and wide awake I decided to browse the special features. There was a sneak peak of the second installment. After watching it I was dumbfounded at how cheap the whole thing looked, the lighting, sets and even sound were like something from an ITV drama/series. Thankfully the finished film is a lot better than Crossroads or some other shite of that nature.

Ok so before I type on I should probably say that I loved The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. I thought it was brilliant, a proper edge of your seat thriller with a weird Thomas Harris spin to it.

The girl who burnt her bit or the girl who played with fire picks up around a year after the first film (i'm not too sure so anyone who wants to correct me can just jog on). Lisbeth is abroad living a rather lavish lifestyle and getting a tan, lets face it she needed it. As a pale person I feel I can say this that woman looked sick. Blomkvist is still working at millennium doing his thing.

A new young fresh faced dude comes to millennium with a story on sex trafficing and prostitution, how can they refuse? To make the story even sweeter it implements many high powered people. I'm not causing a spoiler by saying that this dude does not make it to the 2nd reel of film. Sadly the little fresh faced fudger bites the dust. Who is the suspect for the murder? none other than the most unlucky bisexual hacker of all time (lisbeth Salander).

What follows is really two seperate investgations, we see Lisbeth on the outside of the law following up leads and clue which Blomkvist investigates the suspects of the sex trafficing to try and find the truth.

My only problem with the film is the distance between Lisbeth and Blomkvist. For me one of the best bits of the first film were the scenes with the two of them in it. This movie does a great job of showing the two working separately but I kind of missed that awkward tension and mutual respect between the two that I grew to love in the first film.

Thankfully the whole film looked and felt more expensive that the preview scene I saw at 4.3o in the morning. There are some great set pieces, my god am I at the stage where I use phrases like set pieces?.... fuck this is worrying. Anyway there are some great scenes with Lisbeth interrogating men, a burning barn and dig your own grave moment.

One new main character is very similar to a big bad guy you would find in a bond movie. He is virtually unstoppable and can't feel pain. Although far fetched the big brute is fantastic to watch and you really end up hating him, he reminded me a lot of the T1000 from terminator 2, at no stage did he turn into liquid metal so please do not sit down expecting him to stab someone through a milk carton. Some of the new characters are slightly strange with a lesbian kick boxer springing to mind as one of the more ridiculous.

The film has tension and goes some way to explain further the past of Salander. Although this is interesting the tension never really reaches the kind seen in the basement scene from the first film. It was that silence of the lamb feel that i enjoyed so much about the first and ya get to see little shades of that in this installment.

Overall

Felt a little cheap in parts but still has some of the magic from the first. Good follow up to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but it was missing a lot of the tension and mystery from the 1st. Still well worth a watch.....has got me looking forward to finishing the trilogy.

3/5