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The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest: The Extended Cut (DVD)
Year: 2009
Rating: MA
Director: Daniel Alfredson
Cast: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace
Release Date: December 01, 2011
Distributor: Roadshow
The Film: 2.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5"...this final chapter remains almost deliberately over-talky, uneventful and drab..."
Stieg Larsson didn't live to see his ‘Millennium' trio of books made into a threesome of Swedish films, but he mightn't have been happy with the way that the series declines in interest as it goes along and how ‘The Girl', Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), is reduced in this final outing to ridiculously punking-up and doing nothing as miserable baddies yak around and about her.
After the events at the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire, she's in hospital recovering and under guard as she's been accused of three murders and, once she's out, will be facing an inordinately long and talky court case. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is fighting to clear her name for some reason (she and he have barely spoken since The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), and after much dreary dialogue between the many pensioner villains, the court case finally begins and drags on and on and on, with doctors and experts prattling on about Lisbeth's guilt and her need for further institutionalisation as she, with a mohawk and multiple piercings, sits silently pissed-off.
As directed by Daniel Alfredson, the original 140-odd minute version seen on cinema screens is here extended to 180 minutes, which helps translate a few of the inconsistencies in the adaptation, but still, this final chapter remains almost deliberately over-talky, uneventful and drab, and finally ends the series by way of a sort of mercy killing.
