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The Girl Who Played With Fire

Stars: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Yasmine Garbi | Written by Jonas Frykberg | Directed by Daniel Alfredson

The Girl Who Played with Fire is the first sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and while Hollywood still wrangles over casting for the remake of the first part of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, part 2 is about to hit UK cinemas.

Carrying on from where the first movie left off, Lisbeth Salander is in the Caribbean, with her fraudulently acquired riches, while Mikael Blomkvist is looking into a story about sex-trafficking. When Salander discovers that her corrupt guardian Nils Bjurman is planning to get the tattoo Salander gave him removed, she returns to Sweden to ensure this doesn’t happen. In doing so she accidentally gives him ammunition against her, and ends up framed for murders she didn’t commit.

If this all sounds overly complex,...

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Chicago – Movie trilogies often are judged on the strength of their middle chapters. The “Star Wars” franchise wouldn’t have been continually embraced by new generations if “The Empire Strikes Back” hadn’t deepened the characters to such an extent that they became more than mere Jungian archetypes. If “Empire” jettisoned the franchise’s potential, “Attack of the Clones” brought it in for a crash landing.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” is nowhere near the disaster of “Clones,” but considering the international appeal of its source material, the film is a definite letdown. It’s based on the second installment of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy,” which was published posthumously, and gained tremendous popularity with readers worldwide. Larsson was also a journalist with strong antifascist beliefs, and worked at a small publication not unlike the one in his book series. His crime dramas follow an investigative journalist,...

The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second installment in a trilogy of films adapted from the books by Stieg Larsson, proving to be one of the most entertaining and epic mysteries to hit theaters in some time. This second film is directed by Daniel Alfredson and continues the story of Lisbeth Salander, the enigmatic and smart young woman caught within a string a tragically appalling circumstances. However, unlike in the first film, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, this film is told more from the controversial reporter Mikael Blomkvist.s point-of-view, but the plot remains primarily focused on Lisbeth.s story.

If you haven.t already seen The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. then shame on you! As one of the most highly-acclaimed and widely-appealing foreign films in recent memory, seeing the first film is also crucial to fully appreciating the second, as the films create an ongoing...

Have you read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? If not, go read it real quick. We’ll wait.

Back already? I’m not surprised. Stieg Larsson wrote a trilogy that, by all accounts, is hard to put down. (We’re still waiting for the third book to be released in the U.S.) Read LeeAnn Kriegh’s excellent AfterEllen.com review if you want a second opinion.

We’re still waiting on word about when an American adaptation of Girl will be made (current rumors place it in 2012), but the Swedish version is about to be released in the U.S. (March 19) and we have a new trailer.

When a book this popular is adapted for the big screen, fans always are concerned about casting, since they feel like they know the characters. But Noomi Rapace, who plays bisexual protagonist Lisbeth Salander, has received high praise for her portrayal.