Let’s just get this out upfront—if you haven’t caught the first two installments released several months back, don’t even bother watching this third and final film, based on the best-selling Millennium Trilogy novels written by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson. You’ll be lost. And bored.
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| PHOTO COURTESY OF ENCORE FILMS |
For one, there’s a whole lot less action and a lot more talk as compared to its predecessors, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Fans who have been following the saga, however, will be more than satisfied. Picking up from where the previous film ended, the maverick Lisbeth Salander is hospitalized after her disastrous reunion with her father—yes, the one she tried to kill when she was 12, and again in the second installment.
As she awaits recovery to be put on trial or attempted murder, Mikael Blomkvist is determined to prove her innocence, at the same time getting to the bottom of Salander’s mistreatment and abuse at the hands of the Swedish doctors and authorities during her childhood. A lot happens during the last half an hour, which masterfully ties up every detail in Salander’s dark past with her present. It all ends with a grand showdown between Salander (who looks like she ransacked Marilyn Manson’s wardrobe to dress up for the court appearance) and her long-time nemesis, the psychiatrist Peter Teleborian (Anders Ahlbom).
Having delivered consistently strong performances and serious acting chops, both the leads, Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, are such a hit with audiences that they are finding role offers thrown at them from Hollywood producers (for starters, Rapace will be starring in Sherlock Holmes 2 and the latter in Mission Impossible 4).
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