The Girl in the Spider's Web
- Carlee Goodrum
- Nov 14, 2018
- 7 min read
Hello there! I don't really know what to say greetings wise so I'm just gonna leave it there. It's not like it's been that long since we've been here so we'll just move on. Today I will be reviewing The Girl in the Spider's Web based on the best selling books. I was pretty pumped about this movie but also slightly nervous. Why you ask? Well you'll just have to find out unless you're a cheater and skip down but I don't think any of you are... I mean you read this whole thing in its entirety, right? That's what I thought, glad we cleared that up. Anywho I think we should move on. LET'S DO IT!
PLOT:
This film is based on the popular The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo book series. This particular film is based on the fourth book in the series. It follows the exploits of the hacker Lisbeth Salander (played by Claire Foy in this particular adaptation). In this story Lisbeth is approached by Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), a computer scientist who has created a top secret program that whoever has it is in control of the most powerful nuclear weapons in the world. He asks Lisbeth to help him get it back from the NSA because he believes that it should be destroyed, it's too dangerous and in the wrong hands could be catastrophic.
Lisbeth accepts the job and with her hacking skills manages to hack into the NSA and get the program back. Edwin Needham (LaKeith Stanfield) who's in charge of the program at the NSA notices that his computer is being hacked into and tries to stop the transfer but is too late. He manages to track down the source of the hack and is determined to track them down. However someone else is also after the program. They break into Lisbeth's apartment and steal the program while also blowing up her apartment. She escapes but before she does she checks her security cameras and gets a capture of one of the men but he's wearing a mask. She approaches her colleague and friend, Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) to help figure out who these men are and who they work for.
With some digging Mikael discovers that the man is part of a network called "The Spiders". Together Lisbeth and Mikael try to figure out what this organization is and what they want.
REVIEW:
So as I said before I was equally excited and nervous about this movie. I was excited because I love this book series (it's one of my favorites) and I loved the David Fincher adaptation so I was looking forward to a new story in this series. I was also pretty nervous about this movie because I love the book series and I loved the David Fincher adaptation. This is a whole new cast from the previous film and this movie isn't covering the second book, it's covering the fourth book in the series. So you can see why I was a bit hesitant but I remained positive because it has Claire Foy, a fantastic actress in my opinion, and an interesting story to tell. It made sense for them to choose the fourth book to cover for this reboot because the first book had been done twice already and the second and third book are deeply connected to that first book. The fourth book is more of a standalone book so it wouldn't greatly affect the overall story to just jump into it.
Let's talk about performances, well mainly one performance because she's the heart and soul of this series, Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander. I had mixed feelings about this choice when I first heard about it because as stated above I really love Claire Foy as an actress and I knew she would do a great job with the material but I was such a fan of Rooney Mara's performance in David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I thought Rooney just captured the character and her performance stood out to me so it was hard for me to picture anyone else inhabiting this character. However, if they're going to choose someone new you can't go wrong with Claire Foy. I thought she did a really great job in this film and I'm really starting to appreciate Claire Foy as a movie star. She's branching out from her role as Queen Elizabeth and I think she does a great job in every role she's chosen. She had big shoes to fill with this role because Lisbeth is such an iconic character and many people favor one adaptation of her movie personas whether it be Rooney Mara like me or the original, Noomi Rapace. I think Claire really held her own with this performance and I think she did a great job of capturing the character. She plays this tough-as-nails character who has a hard exterior and quite frankly a hard interior as well but was able to give her soul and emotion. However, sometimes for me she showed too much emotion which isn't necessarily a bad thing it's just that Lisbeth's character is so distant and she hardly ever shows emotion even when you know she really wants to. When Claire played certain scenes with that much emotion it kind of took me out of the character. However, although I still favor Rooney's performance a bit more, I'm happy to report that I really enjoyed Claire's performance. I look forward to if and when she wants to inhabit this character again.
Let's talk about story next. I won't go into too much detail because that would be spoiler territory and I don't want to ruin the film for you. So as I said before this particular book is more of a standalone book compared to the others in the series. I really enjoyed this story and I thought the pacing of it was very good. It kept you interested and engaged. It felt more like an action thriller rather than a mystery like its predecessor. I favor the story of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because it has such a good mystery and really allows you to delve into the characters of Lisbeth and Mikael. That's not to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy this film because I did. I plan on watching this one multiple times. This film just didn't have the same amount of mystery and intrigue as the first one. Like I said it was more on an action piece but a fantastic action piece, mind you. This story focused more on Lisbeth's goal of getting the program back and finding out who "The Spiders" are and their agenda. We do get some insight into her childhood and her backstory which is really interesting and I honestly wish we got more of it because it really allowed the audience to get a better picture of who this character is. One big highlight of this particular film is that you can come into it completely blind (not having read the books or seeing any of the film adaptations) and still enjoy it and not be confused. I saw this with my mom who had never seen the films or read the books and she wasn't confused at all and enjoyed herself.
I'd like to talk about the cinematography a bit (I know, shocker). I'm just going to say it... I'm a sucker for snow on the screen. It just looks so cinematic. I'm not sure how you all feel about this particular opinion but I absolutely love it. Let me tell you this movie has snow all over the place and it looks great! There's one scene in particular where Lisbeth wearing all black confronts another character wearing all red against the snowy backdrop (that's all I'll tell you because again... spoilers). It just looks so great and makes the colors pop. It just adds an element, I don’t really know how to describe it but just trust me snow is always great on the big screen. The rest of the film looks great as well. They do a great job capturing the action scenes which can be a difficult task because they can be too choppy. Many action scenes try to cover multiple situations at once and it can get distracting and the audience often doesn't know where to look. With these action scenes they keep it succinct and everyone has the same goal. Even when it cuts to other characters within the scene, we know the goal and their specific task.
PARENTS GUIDE:
This film is rated R. There is quite a bit of violence and blood. There is also cussing. There is a brief glimpse of a naked woman but it happens so fast you don't see anything. There is talk about implied sexual activities. I probably wouldn't bring the kiddos to this one.
OVERALL RATING:
For this film I will give it a...
The Girl in the Spider's Web: 7/10
I gave it this score because I really did enjoy it but like I said I still favor the David Fincher/Rooney Mara adaptation. I really enjoyed the story and action in this one. I also thought Claire Foy had a great performance and I look forward to any and all of her future films.
CONCLUSION:
So as you can see I really enjoyed this film and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. Overall I think it was a really good film that told an interesting story and had interesting characters. Although it wasn't the original cast that I love so dearly, I thought the new cast brought a fresh take on each of these characters and did a wonderful job. I don't really have much more to talk about so I think I'll end it here.
As always thank you SO much for visiting this little blog of mine. Please be sure to leave me a comment or suggestion (come on people, I need these... I've gotta know at least one person reads this thing!). Be sure to tell your friends! I guess that's it! Until next time!
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