The Girl in the Spider's Web
Film
Review by Kam Williams
Claire
Foy Shows Her Versatility as Feminist Superhero
in Reboot
of Swedish Suspense Franchise
The
late Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) is best remembered as the author of
the Millennium trilogy of posthumously-published best sellers, all of
which were eventually made into feature films (The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked
the Hornet's Nest). His Swedish-language psychological thrillers
revolved around a crime-fighting duo composed of veteran journalist
Mikael Blomkvist and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander.
In
2015, David Lagercrantz wrote the fourth installment in the series,
“That Which Does Not Kill Us,” which was lauded as a faithful
extension of the famed franchise. That book has now been adapted to
the big screen as The Girl in the Spider's Web.
Directed
by Fede Alvarez (Don't Breathe), the film co-stars Claire Foy as
Lisbeth and Sverrir Gudnason as Mikael. Foy, who won an Emmy, Golden
Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for her portrayal of Queen
Elizabeth on The Crown. And she's recently been getting a lot of
Oscar buzz for her critically-acclaimed portrayal of astronaut Neil
Armstrong's stoic wife, Janet, in First Man.
Here,
the versatile thespian exhibits an impressive acting range in a
demanding role where she plays a traumatized, incest
survivor-turned-righteous vigilante. This incarnation of Lisbeth is
not only a brainy, IT expert but a seemingly invincible heroine with
an extraordinary set of fighting, driving and survival skills.
As
the film unfolds, we find Lisbeth and her sister Camilla (Sylvia
Hoeks) being molested by their father as youngsters. The former makes
a daring escape from their snow-capped, mountaintop home, saving
herself, but leaving her little sis behind to be violated by the
monster for years.
Fast-forward
to present-day Stockholm where vengeful Lisbeth is in the midst of
unleashing a string of sadistic vigilante attacks against some of the
city's worst misogynists. However, the plot makes a sharp turn into
world politics when she and sidekick Mikael are recruited to disable
a dangerous computer program developed by America's National Security
Agency capable of sabotaging other countries' nuclear defense
systems.
What
ensues is a grisly game of cat-and-mouse played by spies equipped
with state-of-the-art gadgetry. As the body count escalates, the
relentless bloodletting is presented in such a stylized fashion that
it's never really upsetting until the humdinger of a reveal during
the dramatic denouement.
Kudos
to Claire Foy for oh so convincingly reimagining Lisbeth Salander as
a cartoonish, feminist superhero on the order of Wonder Woman!
Excellent
(4 stars)
Rated R
for violence, profanity, sexuality and nudity
Running
time: 117 minutes
Production
Studio: MGM / Columbia Pictures / Pascal Pictures / Yellow Bird /
Scott Rudin Productions / The Cantillon Company / Regency Enterprises
Studio:
Columbia Pictures
To see a trailer for The
Girl in the Spider's Web, visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKMSP9OKspQ
2 comments:
Superhero in Reboot of Swedish Suspense Franchise
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Frans Balder volunteers programmer Lisbeth Salander to take FireWall, a PC program that can get to codes for atomic weapons around the world. men white jacket - TheLeatherMakers
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