The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

The best of the three films
The third story in the Millennium series begins precisely where the second ended. Lisbeth is taken to the hospital. Shot three times and buried alive, she needs emergency brain surgery to remove a bullet. Her father is still alive and her half brother is still on the prowl. Eventually Lisbeth is transferred to a Stockholm jail where she awaits trial for attempted murder. In this story we learn the big backstory--not just Lisbeth's relationship with her father and half brother, but the relationship between Lisbeth's father and a secret security unit, unknown even to the Swedish prime minister. These characters are anxious to remain anonymous. That means eliminating witnesses (or, in Lisbeth's case, consigning her to an asylum, permanently).

Here's what to keep in mind. You should not pay any attention to film critics who fail to perceive the film's genre. Just because there are three books in the series, with a repeating cast of characters, you should not expect all...

Lisbeth Salander Vs. The System
"The Girl Who Kicked A Hornet's Nest" is really more like "The Girl Who Played With Fire Part II" -- this movie begins mere minutes after the end of the previous one, and everything stems from the film before it. The third and final film adapted from Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy is a taut, unnerving exploration of a government cover-up -- with the titular "girl" as their victim.

Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has been shot in the head, and is rushed to a hospital for surgery -- the same hospital as her evil father Zalachenko. And since she's still being framed for murder, Mikael (Michael Nyqvist) devotes the forthcoming issue of "Millennium" to clearing her name and revealing the government's dirty secrets (including how they had her institutionalized as a kid).

But when Zalachenko threatens to rat them out, the "Section" sends an assassin to shoot him. Unfortunately, this group also wants want to punish Lisbeth by sticking her in another mental home, and...

Excellent!!!
I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, with a sense of shock and awe. The Girl who played with Fire left me wanting more. After reading the first two books I saw the Swedish movies with english subtitles. They did great justice to the books and sanitized them a bit to reduce the shock factor. I was not disappointed by this movie and was especially happy with the English dubbing that relieved me of the distraction of reading subtitles. Action, adventure, intrigue, government conspiracies, suspense, well developed characters, great plot.....it was an excellent movie and the 2 1/2 hours flew by. My only regret is that Stieg Larsson died before completing the 10 book series he had planned. I have heard that there is a fourth book and I really hope this is true. I need another Lizbeth and Bloomquist fix.

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