The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

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After surviving being shot and buried alive at the hands of her father, Zalachenko (Georgi Staykov), and mute sidekick Neidermann (Spreitz), at the climax of ...Played With Fire (a horrendous ending that belied the realism new director Alfredson had strived for throughout), Lisbeth Salander (Rapace) has been rushed to hospital with Zalachenko, who also miraculously survived Lisbeth's hatchet blows, treated in the same ward. Journalist Blomkvist (Nyqvist) rushes about Stockholm gathering evidence for Lisbeth's defence in her upcoming case (she's still on trial for three murders) and plans to publish a Millennium special on Lisbeth, exposing her framing of the murders, garner unwanted attention with editor Erika (Lena Endre) on the receiving end of some threatening emails. Meanwhile, Niedermann hunts Lisbeth down and a secret security unit within the government attempts to silence both Zalachenko and Lisbeth before they can talk.

There's a lot going on but Alfredson's efforts to keep the pace snappy - the scenes are kept short - come unstuck with the plodding screenplay he's working with: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is 147 mins long and for well over an hour of that, Lisbeth, the heroine of the trilogy, is confined to her hospital bed as she recovers from her wounds. After that she gets to walk around a jail cell and then sit in a courtroom. This isn't interesting visually (unless you're James Caan) and Alfredson knows this so fills the void by having Blomkvist feverishly typing on his laptop and calling people on his ever-present phone. No dice, though.

The 'realistic' edge the series aimed for might have been tossed aside at the climax of Part II and that motif continues here - trained cops and professional assassins wielding machine guns come unstuck against unarmed targets for some reason. And any lawyer worth their salt would advice against Lisbeth's decision to wear her in-yer-face goth clothes (complete with a spiked dog collar) for her court hearing. As with the previous outings, this thriller's positive points are the performances, especially Rapace who has to emote a lot while prostrate. Ahlbom, who plays Lisbeth's former psychologist, brings a seediness to his Dr. Teleborian.

Let's hope David Fincher's upcoming remake will iron out these flaws.