The Girl in the Spider’s Web is an adaptation and technically a sequel to the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was a remake of the Swedish movie with the same title. The Swedish movies were adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, but he died before he could write ten as he originally planned. His partner possibly has books four and five on her computer and was willing to finish it. His final wishes were not legally documented properly so his family inherited the rest of his notes and basically farmed them out to a new guy to bring Larsson’s notes to life, but allegedly refused to give his partner permission to do what she offered. So even though The Girl in the Spider’s Web is the fourth published book, it may actually not be the fourth book that Larsson intended to write.
I haven’t read any of the crime novels in the Millennium series, but doesn’t it seem a little bananas that Sony Pictures Entertainment has the right to all the books, but decides to leap past the originals and go straight to the shameless money grab ones, which may be good, but are definitely not going to be written in the same vein of the original trilogy regardless of whether the person who knew the author best and may have helped write the original trilogy or another author wrote it? Any flawed movie based on an adaptation, especially an adaptation of a book with such a turbulent history, is going to leave the viewer wondering who is to blame: the filmmaker or the author. I’m going to blame neither, and direct any complaints to Sony and Larsson’s family for making poor choices that makes it seem like they’re just trying to get paid.
I didn’t see The Girl in the Spider’s Web in theaters because I knew that it couldn’t possibly be good. The movie is usually never as good as the book, and a sequel book written by a different author could never be as good as the original trilogy. If you know of an exception to the latter part of this rule, please let me know. So why would I want to see it at all? I have a soft spot for Fede Alvarez. I’ve only seen one of his films, Don’t Breathe, but I really enjoyed it, and any moderate success that this movie achieved could be attributed to him; however looking at his resume, I think that while this kind of work pays the bills, he would be better off working on original content instead of sequels or remakes.
Claire Foy is the other person responsible for any success that The Girl in the Spider’s Web has. I never saw The Crown, but I’ve seen her in two severely flawed movies, Unsane and First Man, and she is usually giving the best performance in the film. You can’t blame her if your movie sucks. She has an anger and vulnerability that doesn’t cancel the other out. I’m not mad that they didn’t bring back Rooney Mara, no disrespect intended, but if my life depended on remembering one of Mara’s strongest performances to stop an object from space that threatens to obliterate all life on Earth, we’d be dead. Foy’s overall resume may not be as strong as Mara’s, but she can save us all.
So how is The Girl in the Spider’s Web? It is entertaining and beautifully shot. The only good thing about Daniel Craig not being in the sequel is that it means that the movie isn’t tempted to get distracted from solely focusing on the protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, and no one is blatantly trying to make it into a love story. Salander, the vigilante and smart fighter, is enjoyable. I loved all her fight scenes even when she lost. This Salander seemed faithful to the Swedish original in attitude.
If The Girl in the Spider’s Web’s story was better, I would definitely watch a franchise or even a vigilante television series, but it employs two plot devices that I cannot stand. It inevitably pairs a badass woman with a kid to make her more likable, which I never want. Also when there is a misunderstanding, the hero is implausibly framed as the bad guy and becomes wanted by the authorities. I did not always mind this trope, but I’m oversaturated because I watch Marvel movies and television series, and at some point, it happens to most of their protagonists. Your original, forefront story should provide enough tension that you don’t need a subplot of concern whether or not the authorities will get our fave. To be fair, the subplot ties back into the main plot so it isn’t innately bad just tiresome.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web makes dumb choices. Plague, a hacker, warns Lisbeth of things as she is experiencing it as if he really exists just to be the person in the audience who talks during the movie. You’re distracting. It felt like there were some threads in the story that got awkwardly dropped such as the kid’s mother. Considering that she exists and what happens in the movie, she should be raising hell. There is one action sequence that becomes mildly confusing on the bridge. I rewound and watched the scene several times, and it is completely unclear how the villain suddenly materialized so there could be a distant face off. I hate flashbacks of scenes that I already saw earlier in the movie, especially if they are not shot from the character’s point of view, and it is supposed to be a triggered memory. There is a scene in which a government official hands a tour guidebook as a snide dig at a person’s cover story. Um, does she just drive around with a stack waiting to be snarky? Does she get a discount for buying them in bulk? I appreciate the commitment to a bit, but wow. They completely stole a sequence from Silence of the Lambs. The journalist seems painfully stupid so how is he still surviving while backing and constantly trusting stone cold killers?
The Girl in the Spider’s Web does have some moments that seem too real and made me go, “Ouch.” I saw this movie before Woman at War, but it is kind of hilarious that the one character who is constantly threatened with getting shot is the mostly unarmed black person; however I don’t think that they were trying to make that point. The snarky Swedish official correctly acts, “Would you rather have that in the hands of the Americans, the nation that never missed a war, or us, the nation who never went to war?”
While I appreciated the aesthetic commitment in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the villain is represented by light, almost albino colors or red, whereas the protagonist is symbolized by the darkest colors available or blue, I was mildly offended for Swedes, who do not look like albinos, and albinos, who need a break from being the villain. I’m not sure how survivors of childhood sexual abuse will feel about this movie, but I could see how they may take umbrage.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web is an enjoyable diversion, but would probably make you twitch if you paid to see it. Foy fans should definitely check it out. Millennium fans may be angry. Completists such as myself did not feel as if the movie wasted our time, but is it unique or amazing? No, but it isn’t dreadful, which is an accomplishment for a sequel made from fought over scraps from a dead man.