Movie Monday: The Girl Who Played with Fire at the Angelika

Sequel to ‘Dragon Tattoo’ is a mostly smart actioner

There’s more to the popularity of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy — three novels written in rapid succession but unpublished until after the author’s death in 2004 — than Nordic settings of American-style crime fiction, although there’s certainly a pulp sensibility to his plotting. Larsson writes about arcane subjects, but unlike Dan Brown, there’s nothing sexy or even hot-button exciting about his topics (business intrigue and sex trade, for instance). They’re also nothing like Dan Brown in that he writes, by and large, well.
So what accounts for the huge popularity, not only of Larsson’s books (he was the second-bestselling author worldwide in 2008) but also of the movies of his books goes beyond prurience and into legitimate cult. The Brits have Jane Tennyson and Prime Suspect; the Swedes have Lisbeth Salander.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first movie of a series made in Sweden last year, is the biggest foreign-language film in the U.S. so far this year; the second installment, The Girl Who Played with Fire, hopes to follow in its footsteps.
3 out of 5 stars
DEETS: With Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist. Rated R. 105 mins. Now playing at the Angelika Film Centers.
To read Arnold Wayne Jones’ entire review, click here.