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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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The Girl Who Played With Fire (Film)

by Mark Demetrius | September 20, 2010 16:12 | Edited September 20, 2010 16:13

While the pace is rousing throughout, this hugely entertaining film suffers from the absence of nuanced moments to balance out the high drama.

This is the film version of the second part of author Stieg Larsson's enormously - but posthumously - successful trilogy. Like its predecessor, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (soon to be Americanised by director David Fincher with Daniel Craig in a lead role), The Girl Who Played With Fire hits the ground running in terms of intensity. It also stays that way, which actually diminishes the impact somewhat, because there are no particular lows or nuances to underpin all the dramatic heights. Still, it's an engrossing tale, shot in an effectively murky style.  

 

The focus of attention is on the brilliant computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), whom we last glimpsed in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with a new look in a new (island) location. Now she's heading back to Stockholm, and is about to be embroiled in another complex and horrendously perilous mess. Apart from being in grave personal danger, she's also the object of attention from the cops as the chief subject in three murders.

 

The other main protagonist is intrepid investigative journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). His latest crusade involves an expose of powerful people involved in sex trafficking, but it soon gets personal. He and Lisbeth were an item of sorts, and though he hasn't seen her for a year, he's convinced of her innocence, and is determined to prove it. And then there's the mysterious and allegedly very formidable figure of Alexander "Zala" Zalachenko (Georgi Staykov)...
     

There is a point toward the end of this film where the plot becomes wildly implausible.
Impossible, in fact. The fault lies, of course, with the book rather than the filmmakers. Go and see The Girl Who Played With Fire anyway. It's not much more than a rattling good yarn - but it certainly is that.