A Rainha do Castelo de Ar

I decided to go all-out and give myself the full Millennium experience by watching the TV miniseries (9 hours in total) over the space of three nights. As a result, these reviews are of the extended, three-hour editions of each film rather than the condensed, theatrical two-hour versions.

Let's just say that THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST doesn't disappoint. It finishes off the Millennium trilogy in an intelligent, emotionally satisfying way, drawing up all the themes and mysteries of the last two films. Great direction, great plotting, great acting, great cinematography...what's not to love?

The final film in the Millennium Trilogy and what a great film is it, right up there with it's precursors.

We learn even more about Lisbeth's, hidden organisations, and how everything is linked. The pieces of the puzzle come together, and I felt the film explained almost everything pretty cleverly, though this does involve some concentration from the viewer, because some of the links are not emphasised that well and maybe can be missed.

This is more similar to the first one, in the style of directing and also the ruthless reporting is back. Less action than the first, but no less enthralling for it. There is a lot of tension in this movie, and it made for compulsive viewing.

These three films have turned me more onto more modern Swedish Cinema. I was always a fan of Bergman and I have seen a few movies over the last few years from there, but this makes me want to keep a closer eye on the Swedish Film Making Industry. Great success guys, I look forward to seeing much more cinema from Sweden. Now I will read the books.

9/10 Excellent

Excellent! In my opinion, maybe the best of the three installments of the 'Millenium' trilogy. I tend to disagree with Mr. Berardinelli's review in calling this 'an abject failure as a stand-alone motion picture', simply because it was never supposed to be a stand-alone motion picture. In Sweden, this was just part 5 and 6 of a TV Miniseries, and for being that it is excellent! My compliments to the Director, the writer and the entire cast.

Like Ebert, I also hope they manage to complete the 2 unfinished scripts by Stieg Larsson thus giving us parts 4 and 5 of this Saga. I will definitely be looking forward to it, both as books and movies!

Perspective: I am 25, Danish (thus understanding Swedish) and have not read the books.

The final movie covering Stieg Larssons Millennium trilogy ties all the pieces together and explains the deeper reasons for Lisbeth Salanders unreasonable treatment by society.

Compared to its predecessors, I found the first movie highly gripping for its unique roughness and interesting characters, while the sequel didn't really catch me due to a plain storyline and little creativity. This movie however is back on track, keeping a good pace of events and complexity.

If you have already followed Salander and Blomkvist during the previous books/movies, you will surely enjoy watching how the conspiracy is being unraveled through intense investigations and court trials. You will experience how the opposition crumble beneath Salander and Blomkvists combined efforts at exposing and confronting the deeper reasons for Salanders struggles, and how they piece the puzzle together to clear her name and taking down the shady factions of society.

The movie has a nice level of well thought out detail, but also a several logical breaches. You leave the cinema with a feeling of wanting to know much more about how the initial conspiracy evolved and how parts of the investigation (not involving the key characters) is carried out. This is likely due to the dept of Stieg Larssons books, being impossible to portrait in just 150 swift minutes. This may eventually be a teaser lurking me into reading the books.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009)

Made to the same high technical standards as the other two in the trilogy, this final installment continues along the same lines without flagging.

And that's the problem. After five hours previously, and already weary of the complex plot and some repeating strains, we have this two plus hours of more of the same. It is never bad, it is often good, but enough is enough.

And the leading forces in the events, the couple who cemented the magic of the first movie (which is quite good), are in this one less than ever. So if you love Noomi Rapace as the "girl" int he title, you'll see almost nothing of her, and in much of it before the semi-exciting climax she is sitting in a courtroom or in a car. That is, nothing much happens. In fact, much of the movie is a matter of wrapping things up--for two hours straight. And the brooding insistence of Michael Nyqvist is here on and off, reminding us how we need more of him, too.

If you are total fan I think you'll enjoy parts of the movie enough to make it worthwhile, but if you're someone like me who flagged in the second movie you'll be better of skipping this third one. If you need to know what happened, read the plot summary on wikipedia. Or I hear the books, which are long, are much more consistently engaging. The movie-making here, the photography and editing, and even the acting, is on a very high plane, so don't get me wrong there. It's just the story that is increasingly redundant and nuanced out of normal engagement.

Oh--and if you haven't seen the other two, don't even think of watching this one. It will make little sense on its own.