The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018) Review

"I don't care.  Just shoot me."
-Lisbeth Salander 



This soft reboot of the Millennium series follows hacker and vigilante Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) as she helps steal an extremely powerful computer program from the NSA.  Her theft quickly catches the attention of several groups and organizations that all want to get their hands on the program and Lisbeth, her friends, and allies all quickly find themselves in mortal peril.  As Lisbeth tries to sort out the mess, she discovers that one of the people after the program is from her past and has a bone to pick with her.


What Works:

I was skeptical of Claire Foy being cast as Lisbeth, who is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, but she proved me wrong.  Foy does a solid job in the role.  She's tough and resourceful, likable, yet prickly.  Lisbeth is a phenomenal character and, for the most part, Foy does justice to the role.

The action scenes are all pretty solid and entertaining.  They felt more like something we'd see in a James Bond film than in a Millennium film, but they were all pretty fun and exciting.  My favorite involves a sniper with an extremely powerful rifle firing into a house.  It's a fun sequence and pretty creative.

I also enjoyed Sylvia Hoeks as the film's villain.  She has a very memorable look and a interesting motivation.  There is a scene where she wears a gas mask with glowing red eyes that looks incredible.  I liked her presence and role in the film, I just wish she had a bit more to do.


What Sucks:

My biggest problems with the film are technical.  The cinematography just wasn't very good.  There were a lot of shots where things were out of focus when they were important to the scene.  That's not a good way to shoot a movie.  Sometimes the important object in the shot would be in focus, but way off to one side of the screen.  It's very distracting and something I learned not to do in film school 101.

I also have issues with some of the lighting.  This is a dark movie and sometimes the scenes were not well lit enough for me to understand what was going on.  I get that the darkness is probably more realistic, but this is a movie, we don't need hyperrealism, we need to be able to comprehend what is going on and lighting is a key part of that.

The character of Mikael Blomkvist is also problematic.  The relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth is my favorite part of these movies.  Mikael is a much older character than Lisbeth, but they cast a younger actor in the role for this film.  That doesn't make any sense with what we have seen before.  Sverrir Gudnason is decent enough, but he is far too young to be playing this character.  

Finally, the story as a whole is much weaker than the previous films.  I've heard that is the case with the book as well and that translates to the film.  There really isn't a mystery, which is what made Dragon Tattoo especially, so interesting.  We have a very clear idea what is going on pretty early in the film.  It's a thriller, not a mystery.  That isn't intrinsically a bad thing, but the execution is a step down from what came before.


Verdict:

The Girl in the Spider's Web is definitely the weakest of the five Millennium films, but it isn't bad.  Claire Foy is solid, the action scenes are fun, and we get a memorable villain, but there are some major technical issues, Mikael is woefully miscast, and the story isn't as interesting as the others.

 6/10: Okay 


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