"The Girl In the Spider's Web" (2018 release; 117 min.) is the latest film about the adventures of Lisbeth Salander. As the movie opens, we see Lisbeth and her sister Camilla as young girls, playing a game of chess, and then confronted by their abusive dad. Lisbeth escapes by jumping through a window. We then flash forward to the present day in "Stockholm", where Lisbeth is hired by a terminated National Security Agency guy to hack a software program that allows an individual direct access to any and all military defense system in the world. Lisbeth succeeds, but along the way incurs the wrath of many people... At this point we are less than 15 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this is a reboot of the "Dragon Tattoo" movie franchise, which until now included the 3 original Swedish films from 2009 (adopting the 3 original "Millennium" books) and the 2011 US remake of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" directed by David Fincher. While for me the 2011 remake was entirely unnecessary (die to the excellent Swedish original movie), at least Fincher kept the original tone: a dark psychological thriller, helped enormously by Rooney Mara's performance (although nobody is ever going to surpass Noomi Rapace). Now 7 years later, we get this film. I must admit I was skeptical from the start, I mean, the US franchise simply skips books 2 and 3 and instead now brings to the big screen a book that was not even written by the original author of the "Dragon Tattoo" series (Stieg Larsson, who passed away in 2004). To complicate matters further, the original 2011 US cast is dumped altogether, even though Rooney Mara made it very clear that she was very much game for retaking the Lisbeth Salander role. Instead we now get Claire Foy, whom we just saw in "First Man". While Foy does an admirable job, at no time can she replace Mara (let alone Rapace). But more disappointing is that what once was a dark and brooding book and movie franchise, this is now an action movie, nothing more, nothing less. Think James Bond for the 21st century. In fact, the opening credits montage is VERY MUCH like a James Bond movie, as is the overall approach to character development (slim to none). And all the plot points all get a clear resolution by the end. Of course. No expense was spared for this film, and it all eyes nicely, but the bottom line is that this film lacks and suffers as compared to the previous "Dragon Tattoo" films.
"The Girl In the Spider's Web" opened a few weekends ago, and has decidedly underwhelmed at the box office. I finally got around to seeing it this week. The Tuesday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended dismally (3 people including myself). Given the film's big budget and meager box office return, it is not clear whether a next "Dragon Tattoo" will be forthcoming. If it were up to me, I'd re-engage Fincher and Mara to adapt Book 2 "The Girl Who Played With Fire" for a US remake. If you liked the earlier Swedish movies or the 2011 US remake of the first film, I'd suggest you keep your expectations for this 2018 movie as low as possible, and then check it out, be it in theater, on Amazon Instant Video, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.
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