Review: THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE * * *

There are characters in the movies that intoxicate me. Enigmatic people whose story no films can never tell me enough of. People who should be the subject of a Dos Equis commercial. Lisbeth Salander is quickly becoming one of those people, and luckily for us all she's returned to try and skirt danger once again.

After the events of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace)has relocated herself to the Caribbean. However, after snooping on the activities of her guardian she decides to return to Sweden to make sure he keeps behaving himself. Their situation is one where she has her heel on his neck, and she feels she needs to press down a bit to remind him its there.

At the same time, her old friend Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is back in the swing of things and is spearheading an investigative story for Millennium Magazine about human trafficking. However, his whole project is thrown into disarray when two young journalists leading the way on the story turn up murdered one night. In a strange twist, so too does Lisbeth's guardian. What's worse is that all signs point to Lisbeth being the murderer.

Lisbeth and Blomkvist begin taking different routes to the same destination: the truth. he is playing every lead he has already found in his investigation, often doing more detecting than the detectives assigned to the case. Of course, since he isn't a suspect, he can do this out in the open. Lisbeth isn't so lucky, and as if her fearlessness isn't making things tense enough, she has to get to the truth while everyone within sight of a TV thinks she's a murderer.


This story has an amazingly appropriate title. After the events of TATTOO, Lisbeth seems to be living life with a strange Supergirl complex. She has gone to such measures to take control of her life and play a part in others getting control of theirs, that in this film she seems to know no fear. She ducks from one dangerous moment to the next with little regard for her own safety.

It's as if she's become bored of winning at Russian Roulette, and decided that it's high time she loaded a second bullet into the revolver.

In the same way, Blomkvist could be seen as a man with a new found streak of daredevilism. His investigative journalism nearly cost him his life once already, and this time out his journalism once again has him threatening some very dangerous men. By now we know that he shares a special kinship with Lisbeth, and perhaps her appetite for danger has rubbed of on him. Or perhaps, it was in him all along and that's what she gravitates toward.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE must of course be considered in relationship to THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. In a few ways, I'm sorry to say that it's a slight step back. While the darkness of that first chapter actually made it difficult to write about and praise, it also made it work very well as a movie. This film isn't quite as dark, which gives the overall experience the wrong tone.

One other factor to be considered, is the full knowledge that Lisbeth's story still has one more chapter to go - THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST. Knowing that film is still to come takes away from the stakes at hand in the final act - an unfortunate side effect to what could have been a very gripping scene.

On the whole, Lisbeth Salander is such an engaging character that even a lacking story with her in it is one that I want to hear. Noomi Rapace has taken her performance to the next step in this film, showing her as someone who has obviously evolved from the events she's already endured...but still hasn't evolved into someone who cares that much for the outside world. She is capable of genuine tenderness, but can still shut it all down and detach whenever she wants to.

Can't wait to find out how her story ends!

What did you think? Feel free to leave comments with any thoughts or reactions on THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE.