The second film in the ‘Millennium’ trilogy based on the Swedish, Award-Winning crime novels by Stieg Larsson, ‘The Girl with Who Played With Fire’ begins shortly after the first film, the protagonists Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander have went their separate ways as Lisbeth continues her blackmail plan on her guardian to ensure control over her accounts while she isolates herself from the dangers her previous actions may have caused. Mikael with a restored reputation has settled back into his life exposing corruption with his team at Millennium Magazine. Mikael’s current project is the analysis and investigation of a sex trafficking ring, which soon draws the attention of a dangerous enemy who shares a close bond with Lisbeth. Three people are found executed and all have connection to either Lisbeth or Mikael. Due to Lisbeth’s past as well as a message and gun left at victim number three’s crime scene Lisbeth is now wanted for the murder of all three individuals. Mikael knows Lisbeth is innocent and begins to try and flush her out before anyone else so that he can protect her while also clearing her name.
The characters in this entry’s story are much more straight forward than the last which I will not dwell on too much for fear of revealing obvious spoilers. Mikael has returned to his normal life following the events and trial from the first film and doesn’t seem to know a whole lot about where Lisbeth has disappeared to. Lisbeth is still sorting out the memories of what brought her to this point of her life and is on a continuous move to keep her actions from catching up with her. The mysterious assassin is a thickly built large blond man who seems to not feel pain at all.
Not many of the effects were able to have the impact that the disturbing first feature was able to portray with it’s story. In this sequel we get some brutal fight scenes, gunshot wounds, and disfiguring scars.
The story in this feature when compared to the last was a paint by the numbers thriller/crime drama. Where the original film made the character’s seem as though they were lost within a web of mystery, ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire’, while mostly entertaining, felt too familiar. Upon researching for this review I came across an article stating that these films were originally aired on T.V. and this one more than the others suffers from the theatrical cut. As a film that was aired in parts it might have had the power of carefully timed cliff hangers to build more suspense, but most of that seems to be lost in this transfer. In this form it’s not terrible, but it doesn’t live up to expectations the original has set for this series. I still have hope for this series and plan on watching ‘The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest’ as soon as it finds it’s way into my life.
