Review: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The final part of the Millennium Trilogy is a return to form, wisely getting rid of much of the Bond and Kill Bill inspired antics and going back to the spirit of the original with a tale of murders, conspiracy and a mysterious past.

The past in question this time is Lisbeth's as Blomkvist tries to prove she is innocent of the 3 murders she is accused of, whilst to uncover why the Swedish authorities seem so keen to silence her. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is still not without problems though, mainly being its still a bit too long and the feeling it would work better as a TV series is hard to shake, but thanks to the power of the performances from Nyqvist and Rapace in particular, you still manage to stick with despite it being hard-going at times.

Therein lies the problem with why the sequels fail to match up to the original - the fact that Blomkvist and Salander are barely together in parts 2 and 3 means they are always destined to be seen as the weaker of the efforts, stripped of the chemistry that made The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo such a success.

Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

For those whose first introduction to the Millennium Trilogy was David Fincher's recent remake - The Swedish version of The Girl Who Played with Fire is pretty easy to get up to speed with, as the only major difference to get used to is journalist Mikael Blomkvist now looks more like Shaun Ryder than James Bond.

It's a shame then that this second instalment is the worst of the three by far, thanks in main part to the introduction of a hokey Bond-style bad guy who feels no pain in an implausible action-based plot that actually turns out to be pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of the trilogy's storyline.

Add on an ending that tries to be a cliffhanger but just ends up annoying the viewer for wasting 2 hours on a film that goes nowhere and you have a middle part that is eminently skippable.

Spot The Difference #7

Michael Nyqvist

Shaun Ryder

If Mikael Blomkvist does need a new sidekick, he could always call Bez

Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

This remake of the Swedish crime thriller does most things bigger and better, but not that much is different to make it worth going out of the way to watch for fans of the original.

The main difference this time around is that this feels more like a film instead of TV episode (though when US TV whore Alan Dale pops up you could be forgiven for being mistaken), thanks to Fincher's eye for cinematography and another pulsating soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

As always, Fincher can always be relied on for an excellent title sequence, but in the case the Bond-esque take on Immigrant Song feels totally out of place with the rest of the film, unlike his previous efforts which complement the existing material.

However, what this film can't fix are the problems with the source material, suddenly swapping from crime thriller to Mission Impossible style chases and heists towards the end still mean things don't ever wind down satisfactorily - and there are times during the two and half hours that feel like like you're watching an Apple advert with the amount of product placement.