Review of movie The Girl in the Spider's Web

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Rating:2.5/5

The original Swedish-language adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s phenomenally successful novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” was not an especially great film by most cinematic standards—it was directed in an efficient though relatively nondescript manner that didn’t always hide the occasional clunkiness of the narrative—but it contained a performance by Noomi Rapace as troubled hacker genius Lisbeth Salander that was so focused and driven and compelling that it single-handedly elevated the proceedings to the level of compulsively watchable. When David Fincher did his surprisingly by-the-book big-budget studio version of the story soon afterwards, it still had the lumpy storyline as well as a performance by Rooney Mara as Salander that, while perfectly adequate in its own right, could not begin to hold a candle to Rapace’s stunning take on the part. However, Fincher directed it with such elegance and precision—without tamping down any of the edgier elements in order to make things more palatable to the masses—that it also resulted in a film that was much better than it had any real right to be. Now, having skipped over the two follow-up books that Larsson himself wrote before his death (and considering the weakness of the Swedish film adaptations, that was probably a good idea), the English-language version of the franchise is being relaunched with “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” and this time around, the resulting film features all of the dubious qualities of the previous entries listed above without any of the virtues.