The Girl in the Spider’s Web

LISBETH SALANDER is back, and Foy is perfect here as the hacker cum vigilante.

If you were expecting more of the darkness that was in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011), you might be a little disappointed.

While the main characters were originally created by the late Steig Larsson (and featured in his Millennium book series), this movie is based on the fourth book written by David Lagercrantz, who was picked by the publisher to continue the saga after Larsson’s death.

Director Fede Alvarez has done a remarkable job of directing this thriller that takes a peek into Salander’s past, and how it connects to her present.

It begins with a young Lisbeth and her sister Camilla being summoned to their father’s bedroom.

Knowing what comes next, Lisbeth jumps from the balcony into a blizzard, but not before asking Camilla to come with her. Camilla chooses to stay with their father.

In the present, Lisbeth metes out her brand of justice on a wealthy man who has a penchant for beating up women.

She later gets hired by Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), an American programmer who developed a software that is capable of controlling the world’s nuclear missiles. Afraid that it will be misused, he wants it back.

Lisbeth does what she is hired to do, but before she can deliver it to Frans, some men break into Lisbeth’s apartment, attack her, steal her laptop and blow her place up.

When she fails to meet Frans at their meeting point, he assumes that she has her own plans for the software and goes to Sweden’s spy chief for help.

Lisbeth, on the other hand, contacts now-estranged friend Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) to find out who these men are.

Frans and his son, August (Christopher Convery), are placed in a secure location but the same men who attacked Lisbeth show up there. Frans gets killed, but Lisbeth manages to rescue August who holds the key to opening the encypted software.

She also discovers that her sister Camille (Hoeks) has now taken over her late father’s Russian mob gang and is behind the attacks.

Foy does a great job conveying Lisbeth’s inner turmoil. She essentially carries the film, as the other characters are not fleshed out properly. Some scenes do drag on a bit, and one fellow reviewer even fell asleep midway.

However, if you are a fan of the Millennium series, you will want to catch this.