CRIME; 2hr 22min (Swedish with subtitles)
STARRING: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace
Bad blood: Rapace and Spreitz
Anyone not familiar with the first two films of the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy will be dancing in the dark with the third and final instalment, which begins where the second one ended. Framed for murders she didn’t commit, computer hacker and drama magnet Lisbeth Salander (Rapace) is flat on her elaborately tattooed back in hospital after a gruesome run-in with her appalling father (Georgi Staykov). Her equally appalling brother (Mikael Spreitz) is on the loose and even as Stockholm journalist — and Lisbeth’s former lover — Mikael Blomkvist (Nyqvist) works to proclaim her innocence, a secret Security Services group is plotting to do Lisbeth in.
For a situation with so much at stake, this tangled web feels bogged down in details. With pocket rocket Rapace sidelined for much of the time, lifeblood is lost. And with so much ground to cover, the cheerless legwork needs to pick up its pace. Rapace is true to form when she does get going and we care about the fate of characters we’ve come to know. It just would’ve been preferable to learn it sooner.
