The Girl in the Spider's Web

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The Girl in the Spider's Web-480P

source: The Girl in the Spider's Web

This movie is an excellent follow-up of the Millenium trilogy, an action packed thriller, shot in a grey and dark atmosphere of Stockholm and surroundings in wintertime. I hope that there will be a sequel to this.

The Girl in the Spider's Web (4 out of 5 stars). The Girl in the Spider's Web is the next entry in the Millenium book series which follows up after David Fincher's film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. With a brand new casts, a new direction, and definitely out of order from the book series. Fede Alvarez direction is a visually entertaining piece, Claire Foy performance as Lisbeth Salander was not as bad, and the plot felt a little different from the others. I will say David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is still the greatest film from Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara performance, and the electronic music score from Atticus Ross. Everything from that was missing in this film. The plot follows Lisbeth (Claire Foy) were she is assigned to steal a program from NSA programmer Edwin (LaKeith Stanfield). When she is double crossed and a group called "spiders" steals it from her. She asks for Mikael (Sverrir Gudnason) help on investigating who this group is and how are they link to Lisbeth. When Lisbeth discovers that her past and mysterious sister Camilla (Sylvia Hoeks) has something to do with setting Lisbeth up. The plot was still entertaining. Less complex than the dragon tattoo movie. And shorter with more action. Also, what I really enjoyed about this film was Lisbeth Salander is a bada** character who tries to protect women and the innocent people. From the opening moments, were she beats and blackmail a guy cause he was abusing his wife. And she empties all his funds to give to his wife. She is that antihero, she is a hacker who would steal a car, escape the police, and do whatever she can to get what she wants. There is more action in this film than the others. A group of bad guys break into Lisbeth's warehouse. She avoids danger. She escapes the police by riding her motorcycle onto a frozen lake which was a cool sequence. Then, the climatic fight with her being trapped in a house with the bad guys and going head to head with her sister Camilla. Fede Alvarez direction is entertaining. It is visually exciting from the set drop of locations in Sweden. Bike chases, fight scenes, and more escaping from the bad guys and running. The plot was different. The music score did not add anything to the tone of the movie like David Fincher's film did. Nor was the plot complex with a layered story. Overall, The Girl with the Spider's Web is a good crime thriller film. Claire Foy was good as the character. Sverrir Gudnason was okay as Mikael, his role felt undeveloped. Sylvia Hoeks was good playing as the villain. Fede Alvarez does build its dark tone with its visual direction. And the plot is a forgettable one.

The film completely abandons the story, characters, plot and suspense of the book. Mara Rooney was everything I pictured Lisbeth to be and, while I generally like Claire Foy, she was abismal as Lisbeth. She isn't this delicate, vilulnerable person Foy created. She is emotionally detached while having a keen sense of right and wrong that doesn't tolerate much gray. Even the characters were so far from their book counterparts that I was left wondering if the writers/director read the book at all. It's not like you were taking a boring book and tried to spice it up- you took an intense thriller that I couldn't put down and turned it into a movie I almost walked out of at the halfway point. Examples: Needham went from a middle aged, pot belly, scruffy computer nerd that saw Salander's hack as a defeat to him personally. He didn't care as much about the content as the act itself. Now he has turned into a special forces sniper than can also hack and wants control of the nuclear code program??? August went from a mute savant that broke the case with his drawings and math to a kid that can speak and happens to know the password??? The technology in question went from cutting edge AI that makes you think about how far we should push quantum computing to a 1980's Van Dame style nuclear code key??? So cheesy and dated. Gross. This movie took a book from my favorite series and gutted it. Have some semblance of respect for the book or else just create a standalone, boring movie about hacking nuclear codes. Cast Nick Nolte and Stephen Segal and go straight to DVD and save me $9.50.

I was a bit surprised when the name of the English translator rolled in the credits, as it really seems no one involved in this movie read any of the books. They really only needed and used the name recognition of the characters. The Acting is quite good. If fact almost everything in this movie is above par compared with most Hollywood shoot-em-ups. But the story, if you can really call it a story, is just so banal. We are told the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad and then we have the plot twist. Yawn.

First of I love Claire Foy, she is a fantastic actrees. She is also very sweet. Lisbeth Salander is not. So it doesn't matter how much leather you put on top of Claire, she's never going to resemble Lisbeth Salander, the punk skinny girl with the dragon tattoo on her back. Claire is also "old" for the role. Claire is 34. Lisbeth somewhere between 24 and 26. It wouldn't matter so much except that the books depict Lisbeth as someone that looks fragile, even child-like. Claire on the other hand looks like a mother of two or three kids dressed in a Halloween custome (no offense). And then we have Sverrir Gudnanson, who looks like he is 32 when Blomkvist is a fater-type figure. Top that with changing the character's motivations and archetypes completely and you get a disaster. "The Girl in the Spider's Web" could very well be called "Lisbeth Bourne" because somehow in the three years between Dragon Tattoo and this book/film Lisbeth became a 00 type agent. Terrible movie for fans. Mediocre movie for everyone else.

I'm gonna sound biased, but the truth is that I am. David Fincher come back! I miss his take of "Millennium", which was brilliantly engaging. But we gotta accept the fact that the whole trilogy couldn't be adapted because of the first film not being financially successful enough. The fourth book was also the first in the series to not be written by Stieg Larsson, but instead by David Lagercrantz. Must have been a daunting task following in the footsteps of the world-wide bestsellers. I remember that my dad recognised him in a store once. So he went up to Lagercrantz, said hello and then left him in peace. My dad said he didn't wanna say anything else because he was being criticised and under pressure for taking over the series. That's when I first heard about it - and yes, I was sceptic as well. The trailers had me worried. The direction was gonna be faster, more action oriented and appeal to an even wider audience. I get that, sure. But the brilliance of "Dragon Tattoo" is its investigate dark mystery. Look how the story is told and how the audience is always interested in finding the answers to the questions. Was "Spider's Web" any good? Well... Better than I expected. Fede Alvarez is not a bad director choice. I underestimated him. He knows how to get the stylish imagery. There's a good eye here since many creative ideas are being used for the shots. It gets points for that. He uses some shaky cam in the intense scenes. Thankfully there's a good balance of steady and hand-held camera use. I've seen Claire Foy getting much work recently. My bets where that she would portray Lisbeth Salander being hysterical or explosive. I was wrong because she lands a solid performance. Subtle when she needs to be, and even showing the emotion that's underneath Lisbeth's tough exterior. Surprisingly she's even funny. Sverrir Gudnason shows a warm interpretation of Mikael Blomkvist. He comes across as a friendly person who's presence lightens the mood. Not a bad take either. I would in all honesty have been ecstatic if Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig had returned. Then again Fede Alvarez felt he wouldn't had done 50% of his job if he took Fincher's cast. I don't really agree, but I understand what he means. The first act of the film was pretty alright. The look, the pacing and the introduction of the story worked. You can tell by the beginning that the style direction will be something else: An action-thriller. Salander has become a vigilante. That's something I feel kind of "Eh.." about. Clearly not the original intention. If you look at it as a James Bond type film, you'll enjoy it quite a lot. Don't go in expecting a moody crime mystery. That's not what you'll get. The story is not as isolated but more expanded involving Nato or Swedish Special Forces and people running after computer programs. Seemed more far-fetched than what it needed to be. The experience of watching "Spider's Web" was enjoyable. You can have fun with the action and your suspenseful scenes. As a typical action movie, it does the job. The villain in the piece stood out to me. Sylvia Hoeks (who we saw in "Blade Runner 2049") delivers an eerie enemy for Salander. I get the feeling she's not gonna get enough credit for this role since her entire character doesn't fit the "supposed" realistic tone. It's a person straight out of a James Bond movie. And there I go again with that comparison, but it's actually got more in common with that now that I think of it. The villain is acted well - The issue is just that she belongs in another film entirely. I went in afraid of what the film would turn out to be, and it wasn't bad. Although it doesn't capture the greatness of "Dragon Tattoo". Stick to the originals for real grittiness. But if you want a fast thrill-ride, then this is decent. Biggest take away: Nice to see Stockholm depicted this nicely in american production again.

Watch the original versions of these movies in Swedish either with the subtitles, or if you can find them translated to English, you won't be disappointed. The first US version was disappointing. The second movie is even worse. Please save yourself the trouble and don't go see it. Read the books before watching the movies.