Millennium Trilogy (Rhoades)

“Girl With Dragon Tattoo” Is Back as Prelude

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Opening next week is the third film in the so-called Millennium Trilogy, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” And as a prelude to that long-awaited conclusion to the series based on the late Steig Larsson’s thrillers, the Tropic Cinema is currently reprising the first two movies, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.”

In case you haven’t seen them or read the books or you still live in a cave in Siberia, these two Swedish films are a way to get up to speed for next week’s “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” (We will review it in next Sunday’s Solares Hill … the screener DVD is playing on my TV as I write this.)

To reprise: These three films, like the books they’re based on, tell the adventures of an unlikely crime-fighting duo, a world-weary journalist named Mikael Blomkvist (played by Michael Nyqvist) and a social misfit computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander (played by Noomi Rapace).

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” best of the three, was directed by Niels Arden Oplev. It introduces Mikael and Lisbeth as they uncover a serial killer. “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” like the third film, was directed by Daniel Alfredson. Here we learn more of Lisbeth’s history and how a division of the Swedish secret service conspired against her to protect her evil Russian father Alexander Zalachenko, now a crime lord.

Do the double feature this week, then enjoy the conclusion next week. Almost like those good old days when there were movie serials.

srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]