The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Annika's quick thinking saves the day and gains Lisbeth's trust. Things liven up for a bit when an old man, seemingly a hospital visitor, slips in and attempts to assassinate Salander. After a brief revisit to the ending of the second film, 'The Girl Who Played with Fire,' we're treated to Lisbeth's brain surgery, then closeups of her battered face swathed in bandages as she listens to the pitch of Blomkvist's sister Annika Giannini (Annika Hallin) on her defense. That said, the book is more involving than the film derived from it because all the words, words, words employed are better suited to the page. His third book has so many characters and so many conspiracy threads, it would be impossible to comprehend as a standalone book. Larsson might have been able to spin a complex tale with intriguingly flawed heroes, but he wasn't a very good writer.

The film's biggest asset is the new character of Jonasson who leavens the proceedings with a much needed dash of humanity and humor. Noomi Rapace does nothing but look remote, at least until a vaguely satisfying last scene. Granted, the second and third books by Stieg Larsson delved more into Salander's mysterious background where the first had a serial killer mystery to drive it, but Alfredson's capper seems like a teleplay, all talk and extreme closeups with exactly three action scenes in 148 minutes. If director Niels Arden Oplev's 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' was a decent enough thriller, with the seamier aspects of the novel taking precedence over character development, the two sequels, directed by Daniel Alfredson ('The Girl Who Played with Fire'), have shown decreasingly diminishing returns.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson