Review: The Girl In The Spider's Web

The Millenium franchise I would say has had a pretty good time with its film adaptations. The Swedish trilogy starring Noomi Rapace are a great watch, David Fincher's version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a really well made American re-make. So the pressure is certainly on for this latest addition and it is one of the two novels that was not written by original author Steig Larsson.

I wasn't really that excited for it as I don't think we needed another story involving the characters of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. Plus, the hype in general wasn't too great either.

I actually ended up enjoying this more than expected. I liked how the story was structured, how the sub-plots eventually crossed over into the main plot and most importantly the action was pretty consistent in their content and execution throughout.

While it is sad not to see Rooney Mara reprise her role as Salander, I was happy to see the brilliant Claire Foy take the reigns. Foy as she seems to do with everything did a great job in the role. I can always see her full commitment to any role she is given and this was no different. I could feel her characters struggles and Foy kept my believability of Salander being a top hacker and someone who could kick some serious ass.
I was pretty disappointed with the way the character of Mikael Bomkvist was used. For someone so integral to the Larsson novels, the inclusion of him in this film seemed pretty pointless. Sverrir Gudnason was given very little to do and felt more in the way than anything else.
However, I was happy with Lakeith Stanfield's contribution. The last year or so has been quite memorable for Stanfield and I felt he did a good job of keeping the film moving along whenever his sub-plot was given some screen-time.
Another performance I feel I should mention is Sylvia Hoek's. While it wasn't exceptional it was completely serviceable and everything you expect. I was more happy to just see her in another film after her strong showing in Blade Runner 2049.

Speaking of strong, the technical side is certainly the films biggest strength. The wintry landscape gives you many wonderful shots to work with and they made the most of it whenever they could. The cinematography was gorgeous to look at and the costume and production design was very noticeable.

Despite all the praise, this for me is the weakest of the film adaptations. Every department was just not as strong as the other films in this series. But I think the biggest reason for it being the weakest is that the plot was lacking in depth and the content not being as dark as its predecessors.

That being said, I still felt this to be a pretty solid and enjoyable crime action-thriller. Foy continues to show how talented she is, the story is interesting and moves along at a nice pace and the action is pretty entertaining and frenetic.

Rating: 7/10