RECENT WATCHES: The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018)

When David Fincher's “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” disappointed at the box office, plans to move forward with adaptations of “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest” were quickly abandoned. (Much to the chagrin of Rooney Mara, who seemed eager to reprise the character.) Instead, Sony decided to go in a different direction. After Stieg Larsson's death, author David Lagercrantz would be chosen to continue the literary adventures of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. “The Girl in the Spider's Web” was the first of these new novels. Presumably to cash in on the hype of this new release, Fede Alvarez would be hired to direct an adaptation. The lead roles would be recast with Claire Foy and Sverrir Gudnason, the film acting as a reboot of sorts of the would-be franchise. 

Since we last saw her, Lisbeth Salander has become a for-hire hacker and vigilante. A program architect named Balder hires her to retrieve Firefall, a program he designed for the N.S.A. that can hack any nuclear code in the world. Lisbeth successfully steals Firefall but cannot crack its cryptic interface. A group of mercenaries nearly kill Lisbeth when they steal Firefall back, before murdering Balder and framing her for the crime. Salander once again enlists the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who quickly uncovers the responsible party: Camilla Salander, Lisbeth's twin sister who took over their gangster father's business. Now a race is on to retrieve Balder's genius son, who knows the secret to unlocking Firefall. 

“The Girl in the Spider's Web” sets out to refit Lisbeth Salander for the modern cinematic landscape of superhero blockbusters. Her introductory scene has her visiting justice, as a vigilante in face-paint, on a rich businessman who abuses women. The film introduces a colorful supervillain for her to fight, in the form of an evil twin. Camilla even has a contrasting visual design to Lisbeth, with blonde hair and bright colors. Her hacking abilities get turned into a superpowers of sorts, as she somehow uses it to deploy the airbags in a pursuer's car at one point. Much like James Bond, Salander is chasing after a world-breaking MacGuffin. The bad guy's goals is nothing more than to plunge the world into chaos. The film even includes an elaborate Bond-ian opening credits sequence, though it skips a chart-topping theme song. Another Bond-like touch has Lisbeth being placed into a death trap, via an asphyxiating fetish vacuum bag.  

Trying to squeeze this character into this mold is, admittedly, kind of a weird choice. Even if they were pulp at heart, Stieg Larsson's books attempted to address serious topics like government corruption, sex trafficking, and fascism. They were talky mysteries with a lot of detail-choked digressions. “The Girl in the Spider's Web,” notably, doesn't seem to be about anything more than its contrived story beats. Then again, the movie makes little attempts to connect itself to any previous version of these characters. The events of “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest” are vaguely referenced, I think, but this film outright contradicts what we previously earned about Lisbeth's childhood. Millennium Magazine plays such a small role and Lisbeth and Blomkvist's relationship is strained, for some reason. The film floats in this weird space, not quite a sequel and not quite a reboot. It's distracting. 

You can debate the ethics of turning the Millennium Trilogy into an action movie. Yet at least director Fede Alvarez makes sure it's all pretty good action. There's a shoot-out, a big explosion, and a motorcycle chase across a frozen lake all within the first half-hour. An intense fight scene with an intimidating henchman in a bathroom recalls the tense scenes of violence in cramped location in Alvarez' “Evil Dead” remake and “Don't Breathe.” The highlight of the movie is the big car chase that follows, which concludes with a tense stand-off on a bridge. The climax involves another vehicular stunt, when a car is sent spinning through the air into some trees. Alvarez and cinematographer Pedro Luque insures the movie looks good too. The snowy whites of Sweden are emphasizes, along with many other bold color choices.

Lisbeth Salander is the kind of role that attracts a certain breed of actress: Petite but intense. Claire Foy proves to be a good choice in that regard. She has the ability to project a vulnerability behind the steely veneer of stoicism. Honestly, I like her a little better than Roony Mara, though she still trails behind Noomi Rapace. If the reboot finds a capable Lisbeth, it completely drops the ball with Blomkvist. Sverrir Gudnason seems way too young in the part and has absolutely no charisma or screen presence at all. He's a complete blank. Better are Sylvia Hoeks, sinister as Camilla, and LaKeith Stanfield as the NSA agent who weaves in and out of the story. His role is probably unnecessary but Stanfield at least brings some attitude to the part.

“The Girl in the Spider's Web” did not do very well at the box office, grossing only 35 million dollars against a 43 million dollar budget. It seems the studio's desperate attempt to turn Lisbeth Salander into an action hero was all for naught. The literary continuation of Larsson's story proved more successful, as Lagercrantz has written two more novels about Salander and Blomkvist. Perhaps American cinema-goers just aren't that interested in the grim thrills that these characters are built around. “The Girl in the Spider's Web” does a few things well but ultimately can't cohere into a satisfying whole. [6/10]