The third & final chapter of the Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is also the weakest entry in the series which, in its effort to bring a satisfying conclusion to the story of Lisbeth Salander, fails to do justice to a lot of elements and relies way too much on Noomi Rapace's performance to get itself past the finish line.

Based on Stieg Larsson's novel of the same name, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest finds Lisbeth Salander recovering from the events that transpired in the previous film and awaiting her trial for the three murders she was wrongfully framed for. But in order to prove her innocence & secure a better future, she'll need to disclose…

A big compilation of uneventful sequences and a very boring pacing issue pervades Alfredson's take on the Millennium final delivery. Starting from the point in which the second film concluded, the events lead to nothing. It is pretty clear that there was a need to wrap things up. Unfortunately, this attempt culminated in uninteresting resolutions that would have worked better if left to the viewer's imagination. The personality of the characters is either changed for the worse or majoritarily lost, except for Lisbeth, whose enygmatic character is further explored returning to her iconic DVD cover look, which is maybe the most interesting feature besides the climax, which had interesting stuff going on.

Needless to say, the aforementioned personal claimings are,…

Part of my Double Feature Challenge

I love it that Part Three of the Millennium Trilogy starts exactly where Part Two left off. It is absolutely seamless -- one advantage of retaining the same director/cast and shooting both films at roughly the same time for back-to-back release dates.

Medevac helicopters are flying Lisbeth Salandar (Noomi Rapace) and Alexander Zalachenko (Georgi Staykov) to hospitals; fugitive Ronald Niedermann (Micke Spreitz) is being picked up by the police with regard to several murders. And editor Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is getting ready to publish his expose on Zalachenko as well as human trafficking in Europe. All is well ... not.

"This whole story has all the elements of a classic Greek drama." ~…

Watched on Blu-Ray (Director's Cut)

Unfortunately I did not like the second part of the Swedish trilogy, so the final act could convince me again. That surprised me frankly. The film is told very slowly and the story is by no means as over the top as the grotesque predecessor, an almost reminiscence of a James Bond movie.

I really liked the focus on the detailed, honest research work of the Millenium editorial staff. Although Lisbeth is about two-thirds of the movie rather the girl that does not leave the hospital room, but that was not so bad. This is how Mikael, his colleagues and their adversaries, a group of old, sometimes terminally ill men, get much more screentime. These…

The second film in this series seemed to go off on a barely believable, action-heavy tangent that cast aside most of the things that made the opening part of the trilogy special, but despite following immediately on from part two, this one fares a lot better. The focus is back on the shady group of creepy old dudes who control the Swedish underworld rather than Lisbeth's weird family, and the themes of corruption, conspiracy and violence against women return.

Despite Salander being mostly incapacitated for this last installment (she goes from hospital to jail to court) it still feels like a more interesting use of Noomi Rapace's talents than the action heroine stuff did last time around. The courtroom scene…

This is more like it. The enormous dramatic potential has been well-handled and put to good use, and the trilogy has redeemed itself from what can only be called 'second film syndrome'. Alfredson weaves the complex, labyrinthine plot with much more assuredness and maturity than in The Girl Who Played with Fire. A resoundingly satisfactory conclusion to the tales of Salander.

Considering that the majority of the action here is of old white men talking, Alfredson gives each scene an air of vitality and urgency that stirs the proverbial stew until it well and truly boils in an explosive but measured third act. He plays around with eyeline shots and the 180 degree line to enhance the dynamics between the…

I watched the Extended/TV version

Millennium movies ranked: boxd.it/bieEK

This was a good continuation of the story and it wrapped everything up nicely, but I still think it is the weakest movie in the trilogy. 
It’s style is very similar to the second movie and it takes place immediately after the events from the second movie too. 
Like in the second movie I think it took everything that worked so well in the first movie and toned it down, which made the thrills less thrilling, the chemistry between the characters less visible and the pacing too slow. 
Mikael and Lisbeth still share almost no scenes together and she spends most of the movie in a hospital, while not really speaking…

Better than the second; worse than the first movie. I think there are 3 important things to note about this series.

1.) Each movie is its own genre which is good because people who may not like one movie may like another because they have different vibes. First is a mystery, second is more actiony, third is more of a court drama.

2.) I don't think there's a single non-creepy man in this trilogy. Even the doctor who never does anything bad still seems weirdly flirtatious in this doctor-patient relationship. Mikael is also very borderline. Plague is maybe the least creepy in all of these. I just kind of like it because it feels like Lisbeth against the rest of…