THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE
4 out of 5 stars

i absolutely LOVED the girl with the dragon tattoo due to the mystery element and thrilling nature of the film, but this one sort of fell short to me… there’s still the over-arching mystery, but it’s all about uncovering lisbeth’s past and the person setting her up for a triple murder homicide! :0


it’s a juicy story, but like i said: it’s not as good as the first film. anyway, this film starts out with lisbeth vacationing in the caribbean and basically where we left off with the first book/film. she heads back to homeland sweden, where she hacks into mikael blomkvist’s computer again to see what kind of story he’s working on. turns out he’s working with a young journalist by the name of dag svensson on a human sex trafficking case… dag had been busy collecting evidence and confronting the johns who use this prostitution ring, and it’s interesting that most of the clientele of this ring are high-ranking swedish govt officials. but then, dag and his GF mia are murdered in their apt with the gun that was owned by nils bjurman, lisbeth’s court-appointed guardian. (remember him from the first movie?) it looks REALLY bad for lisbeth when forensic evidence shows that her fingerprints are found on the murder weapon… it looks even WORSE when nils bjurman is found dead in his apt too… thus, another mystery to solve for mikael (who believes lisbeth is innocent) and lisbeth (who is desperate to finding out the truth)!

i think the mystery in the first film was much more complex and well-told than this second film because it was a true mystery. the mystery in this one is more about uncovering lisbeth’s past, and i felt like it was somewhat predictable… (still well-told nonetheless) lisbeth is such a complex character with such a badass exterior…watch the scene where she beats up two ruthless bikers in the swedish countryside! it’s even awesome yet disturbing that @ the age of 12, she threw a fire bomb at her rapist dad for assaulting her mother… bad-ass, indeed!

p.s. can’t wait to find out what happens next in girl who kicked the hornet’s nest! ;)