Directed by:
Fede AlvarezCinematography:
Pedro LuqueComposer:
Roque BañosCast:
Claire Foy, Sylvia Hoeks, Lakeith Stanfield, Sverrir Gudnason, Stephen Merchant, Vicky Krieps, Synnøve Macody Lund, Cameron Britton, Mikael Persbrandt (more)VOD (1)
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Claire Foy stars in a Dragon Tattoo story as Lisbeth Salander, the highly-skilled vigilante from the acclaimed Millennium book series. Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt government officials, as they race to rescue a dangerous programme capable of global destruction held by shadowy figures linked to Lisbeth’s past. (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (10)
Honestly, apart from the first film in the original Swedish trilogy, I was only really hooked by the first one; the others either weren’t worth much or were purely frustrating, but I didn’t get any special feelings from them. I still haven't seen Fincher’s American remake of the first film...we’ll see, maybe I’ll get around to it eventually. However, I was very interested in this latest addition because it offers a storyline that hasn’t been explored by the Swedes before. Alvarez caught my attention with Evil Dead, a fantastic thriller through and through. That’s why I was quite looking forward to The Girl in the Spider’s Web. It didn’t disappoint me, but it didn’t exactly blow me away either. I think Claire Foy was well-cast in the role of Lisbeth Salander; she convincingly captured her image and her behavior was quite close to the original when you compare it. On the other hand, the actor playing the main journalist disappointed me; I would have chosen someone else for that role. The action wasn’t bad; some scenes were well-shot, but I still wonder if they should have focused more on the thriller aspects rather than the action. Still, it was well done. I give it 64%.
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If I didn't have a weakness for Lisbeth Salander and Claire Foy (and the criminally underused Vicky Krieps), I would rate this film more harshly. I don’t mind that the filmmakers have definitively turned Lisbeth it into a comic book superheroine who treats wounds with superglue, snorts a crushed amphetamine tablet to get up, can move from place to place at lightning speed and needs less time to hack the NSA than to make coffee for an ordinary mortal (Larsson’s trilogy was already headed in this direction). The problem is how they slapdashedly modified the plot to be substantially more layered with multiple perspectives taking into account (and alternating with) the work upon which it is based and the manner of storytelling. Events are connected to each other in a terribly careless and repetitive way, based on the same pattern (someone tries to kidnap/kill someone, that person is captured/escapes and around we go again). Despite signs of psychologisation (Lisbeth’s trauma due to her sister’s betrayal), the characters behave as if they are in a run-of-the-mill action film and their foolish decisions are too frequently not fatal for them due only to fortunate coincidences and magically flawless timing. The visual style, derived from Scandinavian noir and punk as well as S&M aesthetics and merely copying Fincher and Alvarez much more than the slow revealing shots evoking unease and unpleasant feelings (such as the first one after the Bond-esque opening credits), uses fast, chaotic cutting that buries the entire atmosphere. The director is apparently most “at home” during scenes with elements of horror, which make up the only aspect that is not as painfully generic and interchangeable as the rest. I would be glad to see Claire Foy again in the role of Lisbeth Salander, but not in a film that most reminds me of the feminist answer to Crank. 55%
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I’m not exactly a fan of Fincher’s take on Stieg Larsson’s first Millennium book (I prefer the Scandinavian version), but I appreciate this film for the quality of its depictions of the characters, refinedness and wit. The Girl in the Spider’s Web is well plotted and its story has great potential, but Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara made for a more interesting Lisbeth than Claire Foy, and Sverrir Gudnason would be a better fit for Fifty Shades of Grey than for the role of Mikael Blomkvist. Above all, this technically well-crafted thriller is more of an action flick full of genre clichés and stereotypical one-dimensional characters than a movie with a more detailed character psychology and Scandinavian atmosphere.
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Is Lisbeth Salander the most interesting European heroine of the last decade? Maybe she is and maybe she isn't. However, watching all the attempts to adapt her stories for so many years is quite an ordeal. Noomi Rapace had the trilogy and the series, while Rooney Mara unfortunately only had the American remake of the first part, and now Claire Foy is here with the fourth (!) part. The fact that Hollywood doesn't have a second and third part is pretty funny. Personally, I'm even more amused by the fact that in Noomi Rapace's time Claire Foy was known only as Dickens' Amy Dorrit, which really doesn't make for any consistent career work. So what's next? Will there be a next time? And will any other actresses who are just now creating classic series on the BBC be starring in the fifth series? It would be magical because I long ago stopped believing in the pluses Millennium could offer anyway. And yet the potential of this material is so great.
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Holy crap, what pig wrote this script? Incredibly infantile dialogue, bizarre scene development, and nonsensical behavior from virtually everyone, everywhere. From the plot itself, where for some reason ("I thought I could trust her") a programmer approaches the protagonist to steal the NSA's missile launch program, which she accepts (?), to sequences like Lisbeth not being able to think of another way to meet Blomkvist that wouldn't, for example, stop the elevators in two buildings, to dialogue like "Give me her number!" "I'll never give it to you!" "You know she's probably sleeping with other girls?" "That bitch. Here's her number." The facepalm makes almost every scene entertaining in its own right for some reason, but if I'm giving anything an above average rating, it's once again because of the proof that Alvarez still holds his own as a top genre director. The action scenes and the cinematography especially are absolutely top notch, and some scenes (the sliding camera following Lisbeth and Mikael’s fall from the window, the car vs. the forest, and the one-shot from NSA headquarters) had me holding my breath at times. And that's what these films are supposed to be about in the first place.
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