The Girl in the Spider’s Web is all bluster, and in the hands of the director Fede Álvarez, the continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy book series feels like a two-hour clean slate, replete with vigilantism and brouhaha
The Girl in the Spider’s Web is all bluster, and in the hands of the director Fede Álvarez, the continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy book series feels like a two-hour clean slate, replete with vigilantism and brouhaha.
Álvarez, who also wrote the script with Jay Basu and Steven Knight, robs the main character Lisbeth Salander of her mystery, her pain.
Salander, now played by actress Claire Foy, dons a mask that renders her anonymous. She is the harbinger of pain to disloyal men, the kind who would beat the crap out of a woman for displaying a lack of empathy to his anger. Nominally a computer hacker, Salander is a vigilante — unloved by her nation, cared for by none.
The thing is, Salander was a figure to behold in the hands of David Fincher’s American reboot, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or the first three Swedish Millennium films.
From Noomi Rapace in the original to Fincher’s Rooney Mara, Salander’s inner thoughts are sometimes at odds with her actions. The multitudes she contains are simply too many to parse. It is because of this that her character, played by both actresses commandingly, is interesting.
Foy is a fine Salander, but hers feels robbed of an identity.
The story concerns a score, in which Salander hacks into the National Security Agency (NSA) server for software that its creator, Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), wants back. That software could activate nuclear codes, if whoever has it isn’t wise with it, like the Americans.
But wait: A Russian-Scandinavian criminal syndicate, who call themselves the Spiders, wants that software, too. Foy is a great actress, but her character is somber like the film’s pale color, with no modifiers attached to the adjective.
Anyway, Salander also needs to save Frans’ son, August (Christopher Convery), a math savant who holds the key to his father’s software.
She needs to save him from the leader of the syndicate, the mysterious lady Camilla (Sylvia Hoeks).
Camilla and Lisbeth go way back. The twist, although wisely teased in the beginning, feels puerile in this movie. It is a cheap way for the audience to merely think that there is something interesting in Salander’s interiority. There certainly has been in Fincher’s film and in the books, but not here.
________________________
The Girl in the Spider’s Web
(115 minutes; Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Regency Enterprises, Scott Rudin Productions, Yellow Bird, The Cantillon Company, Pascal Pictures)
Director: Fede Álvarez
Cast: Claire Foy, Sverrir Gudnason, LaKeith Stanfield, Sylvia Hoeks, Vicky Krieps, Christopher Convery
Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.