The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest   Starring: Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist Momentum Pictures RRP: £17.99 MP1088D Certificate: 15 Available 11 April 2011

Having been shot by her father, Alexander Zalachenko, and buried alive by her half-brother, Ronald Niedermann, Lisbeth Salander is flown to Sahlgrenska Hospital with a bullet in her brain. She survives the operation only to find that the authorities want to put her on trial for a triple homicide, having already determined that she would be placed in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. Only Mikael and her lawyer stand between her and her fate, but a shadowy organisation is determined that Lisbeth should never tell what she knows. In order to escape a darkened future Lisbeth must share with the court the truth about her past...

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (2009 - 2 hr, 20 min, 56 sec) is the third part of the brilliant Millennium Trilogy, originally written by the late Stieg Larsson and follows directly on from the events depicted in The Girl Who Played with Fire. The film was directed by Daniel Alfredson from an Ulf Ryberg screenplay. Noomi Rapace was nominated for a Central Ohio Film Critics Association award for her work on the three films.

Unlike the previous films which were as much driven by their action as the story, this third movie in the series is both more muted, in tone, than the previous two and more complex, due to the degree of back story revelations that are on offer. Overall it makes for a much better film.

If you haven’t seen the previous two films, then you are unlikely to get the most out of this one. As a standalone it works well, but not as well as it does as the culmination of the previous two. It may seem overly long at times but, given the amount of both back and contemporary story that it has to deal with, I’m not sure where they could have cut time without losing important story elements.

When Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) finally gets her day in court, it initially feels like the dark powers are going to win and have her committed. At this point the film presents its iconic turning point as Lisbeth redresses herself in her punk Mohican style, reclaiming the identity she had chosen before returning to court and presenting evidence so damming that justice is only a heartbeat away.

As Lisbeth fights for her freedom so does the journalist Mikael (Michael Nyqvist) who also is threatened for his efforts. Much of the film is concerned with whether Lisbeth and Mikael can survive long enough to tell her story, whilst being pursued by powerful elements which see themselves as above the government and the law.

Overall it is a very good conclusion to the trilogy, with strong acting throughout.

There's a fair amount of audio options on the disc and you can watch the film with either a Swedish 2.0 or 5.1 tracks or opt for the workable English 2.0 or 5.1 audio dub, the disc also contains descriptive audio for the hard for the visually impaired.

Extras are limited to an interview with Noomi Rapace (19 min, 39 sec) with her discussing, in Swedish, the film and her role as Lisbeth and an interview with Michael Nyqvist (13 min, 08 sec) covering similar ground.

7

Charles Packer