The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

Review by Anthony Morris

You have to be impressed with a thriller that keeps the lead stuck in a hospital bed for the first half of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest.

Then again, the third and final instalment of films following the adventures of abused woman turned avenger Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Myqvist) does continue the series' tradition of feeling like an extended version of an SBS telemovie - mostly because these films have been created by editing down the original Swedish mini-series.

After the events of The Girl Who Played With Fire, Lisbeth is in hospital, as is her evil ex-Soviet father, while his henchman / Lisbeth's half-brother roams the countryside killing pretty much everyone he comes in contact with.

Yet another sinister conspiracy quickly rears its head (Sweden must be full of them), as a sinister organisation working outside the law decides to clear up the loose ends Lisbeth's stirred up and keep her quiet forever into the bargain. 

Much of the first half of the film sees Lisbeth stuck in hospital, much of the second half is a courtroom drama, Lisbeth and Mikael spend next to no time together and the bad guys are the same old sleazy old men using their positions of power to molest and abuse women; with all that in mind, this is actually a fairly entertaining thriller. 

At close to two and a half hours it pretty much does feel like a tv mini-series, and the action - what little there is of it - is awkwardly crammed into the story, but at this stage you presumably care enough about the characters to want to see how things play out and enough keeps happening to keep things watchable even if Mikael is pretty much just a smug, arrogant, pushy pain in the arse. 

As always, it's Rapace's performance that makes this more than just something that happens between ad breaks : the upcoming Hollywood remake is really going to struggle to find someone as powerful on-screen as she is here.

2.5 out of 5

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
Australian release: 3rd March, 2011
Official Site: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Annika Hallin, Anders Ahlbom
Director: Daniel Alfredson