The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is the third movie (and novel) of Stieg Larsson’s MILLENNIUM series. I thought the novel was the weakest book in the trilogy. The first book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, although deeply flawed, was the best book. The Girl Who Played With Fire was a so-so middle book in the series. Part of the problem with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is that goth hacker Lisbeth Salander spends half the movie in a hospital bed and most of the second half sitting in a court room. That makes for a very static movie (and novel). But I loved Noomi Rapace’s performance in all three movies playing Salander. Although she looks like one of Drongo’s Bad Girls, Salander captures a spirit of independence and strength that seldom shows itself in Hollywood movies or conventional novels. She’s a character I wish Stieg Larsson had lived to write his planned 10 book series about. Unfortunately, we only have these three books and three movies. Let’s enjoy them. GRADE: B
I wonder if Hollywood realizes how dependent these movies were on Rapace’s performance. It is going to be very difficult to succeed with someone else. I look at the recent attempt to replicate Let the Right One In and even with what was supposedly an equally good production, the movie faded in a week or two.
You’re right about Noomi Rapace’s performance powering these films, Patti. I’m not sure Hollywood can “translate” them into an American commercial story-line that mass audiences will pay to see.
Hollywood’s history in these matters is mostly negative and there is no reason to think they’ll do any better this time.
I’m guessing Hollywood will water down and sanitize THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO to the point where it won’t be worth watching, Jeff.
Still irked by the mistranslation of the title of this and the first one. Indicative in itself of Not Getting It.
Clearly, the original title of the first book, MEN WHO HATE WOMEN, would not be commercial in the U.S., Todd. It’s always about the money.
Haven’t been keeping up…wonder if they have established whether the fragment of a fourth novel is usable (though given the success of the MILLENNIUM novels, seems inevitable that if legally possible, someone will be called in to finish/flesh it out).
Allegedly, the fragment that Stieg Larsson left on his laptop is the FIFTH BOOK in the series of 10, Todd. He skipped writing the fourth book because the fifth novel was going to be the pivotal book in the series.
I still don’t agree, George, that a title, THE MEN WHO HATE WOMEN, which managed to be a bestseller in every (Every) other language it’s been published in, couldn’t be in English…and it was his UK publishers who screwed around with the titles first.
THE MEN WHO HATE WOMEN is at least as eye-cacthing as THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Of oucrse, if one must, THE WOMAN WITH…would’ve been better, but the UK publisher decided that every cf series needs to have title unity, as if all such fiction needed also to be written by Sneaky Pie Brown.
The UK and American publishers wanted focus of the Stieg Larsson books to be on Lisbeth Salander, Todd. That’s why the titles were changed. And, given the sales figures, their marketing strategy worked.
They wanted to have the titles sound/read similarly, George. And given the sales in every other language, they instead deliver an ironic insult to Salander and more importantly to Larsson’s presumed intent.
You might be right, Todd.