Director: Fede Alvarez
Writer: Jay Basu, Fede Alvarez, Steven Knight (Screenplay) David Lagercrantz (Novel)
Starring: Claire Foy, Beau Gadsdon, Sverrir Gudnason, LaKeith Standfield, Sylvia Hoeks, Carlotta von Falkenhayn, Stephen Merchant
Plot: Young computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt government officials.
Tagline – The Past Never Forgets
Runtime: 1 Hour 55 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Lifeless Thriller
Story: The Girl in the Spider’s Web starts as Lisbeth Salander (Foy) is still fighting the victims of abuse, showing she isn’t afraid to go after even the biggest targets. Lisbeth’s latest assignment from Frans Balder (Merchant) is to retrieve his firewall from Ed Needham (Stanfield).
When Lisbeth is targeted by the people she has stolen from, she must turn to Mikael Blomkvist (Gudnason) the only person she can trust to put the item back in the right hands, while getting involved with a deadly group known as ‘The Spiders’ which contains her long thought to be dead sister Camilla (Hoeks).
Thoughts on The Girl in the Spider’s Web
Characters – Lisbeth Salander is the famous hacker that will stand up against any man that is causing a woman abuse, she will leave her brand on them. She is called for difficult hacking jobs, which sees her take something from the Americans, this makes her a wanted suspect in Sweden and her on the run looking for answers to clear her name. Mikael Blomkvist is still the only person that Lisbeth will trust, he tries to operate from a distant and investigates the trust behind what is happening. Ed Needham is the American that has his system hacked, a government man, he heads to Sweden to get it back and finds nothing but barriers from the Swedish government. Camilla Salander is the long lost sister of Lisbeth, she thought to be dead, but now she is involved in a criminal gang known as The Spiders, targeting Lisbeth for what she wants.
Performances – Claire Foy does feel mis-cast in this role, she doesn’t seem to have a tough enough look to make this character effect as the two previous stars. Sverrir Gudnason had large shoes to fill and he doesn’t do a strong enough job in the Mikael role, while Sylvia Hoeks does what she can with her role without being anything overly special, while LaKeith Stanfield doesn’t seem to feel like the character he is meant to be playing.
Story – The story here is the fourth story in the Dragon Tattoo world, the second in English and is the first not written by the original author. We follow Lisbeth who once again finds herself needing to take on secret organisation that what something that could put the world in danger and this time it becomes more personal, with her sister being the enemy. This story does feel like it has borrowed from many other films and while it still puts Lisbeth is an anti-hero role, we only seem to find ourselves in one direction where Lisbeth is always one step ahead of everything happening, despite the fact we get to see just how twisted the Spiders are, it paints one image of them only to leave us facing a different softer enemy.
Action/Crime – The action was pretty much all given away in the trailer, we have the motorbike chase across the ice, the car chases and shoot outs, each feels very similar and doesn’t have the suspense required in a thriller.
Settings – The film does try to bring everything back to Lisbeth’s backstory with the settings showing the off the grid life she current lives compared to the one she could have lived, the snowy roads add a little to the chases, but not that much overall.
Scene of the Movie – Ice lake escape.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The Spider’s not hinting at wanting to do to what they did to the guy without a nose, to the new Lisbeth group.
Final Thoughts – This does feel like a cash grab on a franchise that has never taken off on the American side of things, we get everything scaled back leaving us feeling disappointed by the end of the film.
Overall: No thrills to be seen here.
