If there ever was a series that would have the honour of the title “The Series,” it would be this one. Based off of the national bestselling author Steig Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy comes some of the best films of a generation.
This third film in the series starts with a bang, as the second film ended with a cliffhanger. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has just been shot by her half-brother Niedermann, under the instruction of her father Zalachenko. She was shot in the shoulder, hip and head, then buried alive. Slowly, she digs her way out and attempts to kill her father once and for all before she runs out of strength and conveniently passes out into the arms of Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nygvist).
I was really starting to worry about the film industry, as it seemed like they were running out of ideas. Fern Gully (1992) turned into Pocahontas (1995), which turned into Avatar (2009). Yes, the characters’ names and race are different and sometimes the magical tree survives, but they are really the same movie. However, my faith in the film industry has returned this year with the release of Inception and now the final instalment of The Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest.
If you liked the complexity of Inception, you will be able to appreciate the intricacy that revolves around Lisbeth Salander’s life. Salander is 27 years old and diagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic. She is not mentally ill, but has been through a tremendous amount of abuse from her father and the people of “the Section,” a secretive group seemingly comprised of wealthy men in positions of power. She was physically and sexually abused by Section member Peter Teleborian when she was admitted to St. Stephen’s Mental Hospital at the age of 12, and then again by her guardian, Nils Bjurman, after the age of 18.
Despite her unjust label of mental illness, she is a very bright individual. Recovering in the hospital, Salander has been charged with three murders and the attempted murder of her father.
After helping Blomkvist in the previous two films as a private investigator and expert hacker, she now needs his help and his controversial magazine Millennium. Blomkvist asks his sister Annika Giannini (Annika Hallin) to be her lawyer and help prove her innocence. As Giannini works with Blomkvist to uncover and find evidence of Salander’s difficult and disturbing past, we come to see why she is the way she is and where her lack of social trust and relational ability stems from.
There are twists in this trilogy that I wouldn’t have predicted, yet when it all comes together in the third film, I couldn’t help but smile at the genius behind it. If you have not seen the first two movies in the trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, you have some catching up to do. The brilliance, action, suspense and drama poured into this film are something that you don’t want to miss come opening night.
The first book of The Millennium Trilogy was published in 2005, with books two and three to following shortly after in 2006 and 2007. Larsson, a journalist and first-time author did surprisingly well, selling over 27 million copies to date. Unfortunately, due to his untimely death at the age of 50, his series stops at the third book; he was nearly finished his fourth novel. There are current disputes about whether or not the series will continue without the genius who started it all; I for one sure hope so.
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