The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest [DVD] [2010]

I have read all 3 Millenium books and the Girl who Played with Fire was probably my favourite. However, the reviews of this 2nd film have been more negative than the first and I was not sure what to expect when I began watching it last night. I was watching the Blu-ray version and it was immediately apparent that the video quality was not as good as its predecessor, although the quality is not as bad as some would suggest. At one stage I thought that I might have been watching a normal upscaled dvd and it was only when I saw the clarity of the final credits that I became convinced that the film was blu-ray. Mildly disappointing but not the end of the world.The second book is action packed and on a 2 hour movie some things have to be omitted. On the whole I think that the director made good choices on the storyline and the editing. I was watching the film in its original language with English sub-titles. Overall I was very satisfied with this film and I'm looking forward to the final installment. Will Hollywood do any better? Personally, I very much doubt that they will. For starters they will not have the superb Noomi Rapace. She has made the role her own and any other actress will find her formidable competition. Secondly, I am convinced that Hollywood will want to change the story and this will likely to be to the detriment of those people who have read the books. If you are hoping for a better version in the short term, don't hold your breath!I was disappointed with the extras that were provided - all in low definition and the picture quality was below average. At least the first film had interviews with the lead stars. With the second film they concentrated the interviews on the co-stars, some of whom had little or no previous acting experience. Unfortunately, the interviews were poorly conducted with very lightweight questions being asked. A waste of space as far as I was concerned. There is the usual taster for the next, and in this case, final film.I think that the film still deserves 5 stars but I have dropped one because of the indifferent quality of the Blu-ray and for the poor extras. These interviews are an insult to the intelligence of the viewer.

I read the books when they came out and the first film I watched was the Rooney Mara/Daniel Craig version. If that's been your experience don't expect it to be replicated here. Not speaking Swedish I opt for the English dubbed version and some of it is seriously bad. The actors playing Mikael and Erika are particularly unrealistic in places where it would be so easy to get the emphasis right. Having said that, the actor playing Lisbeth is absolutely fantastic. If you haven't read the books or watched any of the films don't start with this one - start with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, then move on to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (helps set the scene for this last film perfectly) and then watch this one. The books are like bricks but well worth it if you enjoy the films.

I will start off by saying I am rarely impressed by films of books I have read and loved. And in some cases I just haven't been able to bring myself to watch some at all (Captain Corelli, Lovely Bones to name but two) but I am so pleased I decided to take the plunge with the Millenium trilogy of films.Yes, although some aspects of the books were either glossed over or omitted completely, it was not to the films detriment in my opinion.The casting was exemplary - both lead actors were superb, and there was something strangely attractive about the actor who played Blomquist! Noomi Rapace simply IS Lisbeth Salander. She was perfect. And the cinematography was sublime. For me, this last film is the best of the bunch, bringing all the strands of the story of Lisbeth together - the other two are all about getting us to this more than satisfactory conclusion. It's a tragedy that Larsson is not around to enjoy the success of the books and movies. But equally so that we, the readers/viewers, are as a result denied his next chapter in the story of this most compelling of heroines.Read the books first - then enjoy the films. You surely will.And do yourself a favour - don't on any account watch the Hollywood version first, or at all!

Nothing to add.

It would be hard not to know know that The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest is the last book in Stieg Larsson's excellent trilogy. I'm not normally a crime thriller fan, but a friend recommended that I see the first of the films. I was hooked and immediately bought all three books and then the DVDs. By the way, Noomi Rapace is the most perfect piece of casting I have ever seen in a lifetime of practically living (and sometimes working) in the cinema. However, the third book is by far the longest and it is packed with plot and sub-plot which of course would be impossible to cram into a couple of hours of screen time, but so much has been left out that the film is bound to disappoint. Of course the court scene is in the film, but I felt that even there they could have made much more of that swine of a psychiatrist's comeuppance. And the very end of the film is an insult to Larsson. It's absolutely not what he wrote and doesn't do justice to Lisbeth. Why do so many egotistical directors desecrate other people's work and show such contempt for the paying public? And why are they allowed to? Larsson must be turning in his grave. The culprit in this case is Daniel Alfredson who also directed the second film - The Girl Who Played With Fire. He made a better job of that one admittedly, but that was before his ego took over, I suspect to compensate for the fact that he knew he wasn't quite up to what was becoming a more and more complicated job. I wish they had stayed with Niels Oplev whose taut direction of The Girl Who Played With Fire was far superior. I then went on to read The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo and commented to a friend that I had always had an image of the Scandinavian countries as peaceful havens of liberal democracy but, if these books are anything to go by, they are also hotbeds of neo-nazism, fascism and racism. Three days later the horrific events in Norway took place.