I watched The Girl in the Spider’s Web last Sunday to say the least, is better than the book. WHAAAAAAT?? With little dialogue, nice cinematography, good acting, action scenes, vigilante AU Lisbeth, and sprinkles of hacking, the movie manages to be a good time killer film. Long story short, I had some time to kill after work on Sunday night, I got a pretzel and watched Lisbeth kick ass.
True to the core of Salander, Claire Foy manages to bring Lisbeth quiet, badassery to the screen and I am 100% attracted to every woman whom has played the character, being honest. Claire in occasions seemed very charismatic and charming without uttering a single word, I loved it. She also, managed to capture the silent stalker genius that Lisbeth can be interpreted as. Quick, confident, a woman of minimal words, this adaption of Salander captures you that. As for the other characters from Mikael to Gabriella Grane, they managed to fall flat as they come.
Look, for once I had always pictured Mikael older than Salander. Also, quite confident, mature, but still clueless with technology and still charismatic. On the short amount of screen time our newest adaptation of the journalist it lacks all of it and more. You can see that it was a hollywood attempt in not making him seen like an old man and just someone 3 - 5 years older than Salander. Fine. Needham is turned into your typical American secret intelligence governmental agent cliche. Guns and blazing with the whole I don’t care attitude included. Grane is straight up as flat as they come. Now August is a different ball game.
This particular character was stripped of what made him, him in the books. The core essence of his autistic genius never speaking, drawing, and numbers obsessed talents were completely replaced with your typical cute smart child. Ironically enough 75% of the book is just Lisbeth babysitting the said child, which on paper made the book quite boring. While I do not mind the lack of the babysitting period, I do mind of the lack of August complexity in this adaptation. The fact that August wasn’t able to talk except for his drawings made the whole who did it? who is the person? far more difficult than the hey I saw who killed my dad and so did you aspect. Regardless of those major changes the child actor happens to bring justice to what he was given to work with, just like Sylvia’s Camila.
You know, I’m pretty sure Camila and Lisbeth aren’t exactly buddy buddies. One loved their father, the one saw him for the monster he was. One followed their father’s footsteps, the other one didn’t. One enjoyed watching their father beat their mother, the other one tried to protect their mother. Camila and Lisbeth are like fire and ice, water and oil, cats and dogs, batman and the joker, I think you get the picture, they are opposites, mirror images to be exact. The emotion, the closeness, and longing showcased in this movie is well surprising, but it works for this movie. It added a layer that the movie so desperately needed.
Due to the lack of an actual strong story line, the movie needed layers to come as a strong crime thriller, but it still fails to accomplish that. It does tell the story of twins whom chose different paths and eventually meet in opposite sides of the outlaws and criminal world. One can serve as an anti-hero and the other one as a villain due to circumstances but never truly evil, just 2 different shades of misfits. In other words, you could never guess how bad Camila is without reading the books, the movie portrays something entirely different and to a point it justifies it.
So, how come I prefer the movie over the book? Simple, the movie constructed a quick story by cherry picking aspects of the book that were interesting and added action to it while adding different cinematographic aspects to frame it as appealing. A perfect example of this in the house scene with Camila and Lisbeth trying to get August. A beautifully executed scene with the right amount of action to keep you entertained. The movie does lack the darker image of the original trilogy of the books, but so does the book as well. It is an attempt to turn this into an action movie led by an actress.
There’s nothing wow about this movie, but there is something about it that makes you think huh, is entertaining or pretty decent. If the movie would had managed to take the strong aspects of investigation and tweaks here and there it would had been a solid crime mystery movie, but it didn’t. As someone whom has read the book, I would say the movie is a good netflix potential for those days that you are bored out of your mind. Also, if you are like me, who does not has to pay for the movie ticket, then why not? Go kill some time at the movies, with some popcorn or pretzels.
This was clearly hollywood not knowing how to adapt the previous 2 books that were supposed to follow The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo into movies, so decided to take the weakest of the 5 books line up and switch it up for the audiences. While is not mind blowing, is not terrible. is a good way to kill time. Now if you want to see an action movie led by an actress Atomic Blonde, Alien, Kill Bill, and Wonder Woman are definitely worth it. Tomb Raider, Mad Max: Fury Road, Salt, Colombiana,etc... are also good additions. This particular movie is going to join to other female led movies that unfortunately aren’t excellent not due to the cast, but to the lack of writing. While is refreshing to see ladies as the lead role in action movies, something with a stronger plot, would be better. I still love Claire as Lisbeth, to be honest...
