To call this an adaptation is an insult to all other adaptations. I was wary when I read that another author was continuing “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series following Stieg Larsson’s death, but once I read it, I was looking forward to more. So when I heard about the The Girl in the Spider’s Web film, I was cautiously optimistic. (I was a lot more taken with the Swedish versions of the originals than the American one.) But what this film does to the book is ignore it entirely and replace a gripping story and complex characters with a lame cookie cutter action pic. Shame on them!
Claire Foy plays Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant hacker at the center. She’s hired to hack the US National Security Agency to retrieve some software for the scientist who designed it but who’s concerned about how it’s going to be used. But there are also some nefarious Russians with Spider tattoos who want it. And once they kill the scientist and of course it looks like Salander did it, she’s on the run with the scientist’s kid who’s the only person who knows how to open the program. And Michel Blomkvist, the journalist that is her only friend in the world, is drawn into the drama.
What I found the most disappointing about this film was how they took a complex female character who was smart and self-sufficient and who refused to be defined by her abusive past, and they erased every bit of her to try and turn her into an action hero. Skip this one and pray that if another comes along, the producers decide to honor the characters and the original story. And maybe have it directed or written by a woman.