Salt Lake Tribune Review

Sequels are the curse of successful creativity.
Sequels require that the makers of a popular story do it all over again. They have to make it different, bigger and bolder — but within the confines of what made the original so appealing in the first place. And no matter what they do, the sequel will have to stand up to the original.

Sometimes, a sequel can make that leap (“Toy Story 3” is a prime example from this summer), but usually sequels fall under the load of expectations.
The Swedes are not immune to this phenomenon, judging from the strained thrills of “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” the second movie adaptation based on the late novelist Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” takes off where “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” left off, with antisocial Goth computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (played, again, by Noomi Rapace) traveling abroad just under the law, but heading back to Sweden. Meanwhile, her former partner in crime, magazine editor Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist, in the role soon to be filled by Daniel Craig in the Hollywood remake), is taking a pitch from two researchers who have uncovered a sex-trafficking ring that involves many high-ranking members of the Swedish government and law enforcement — including Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson), the loathsome court officer who brutally raped Lisbeth in “Dragon Tattoo.”

Soon, the researchers are found shot to death with Bjurman’s gun, and Lisbeth’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon. Lisbeth, accused of three murders, has to go underground as she starts investigating who’s trying to frame her and why. At the same time, Blomkvist also digs into the murders, seeking the link between his researchers’ deaths and the officials his magazine was about to expose.

The central tension in the first movie, the tempestuous relationship between Lisbeth and Blomkvist, is largely absent in this sequel — an unfortunate byproduct of a plot that puts the two on separate tracks nearly to the story’s conclusion. And the new director and screenwriter, Daniel Alfredson and Jonas Frykberg, can’t overcome the whopping contrivances, including a pain-free heavy who’s straight out of a Roger Moore-era James Bond movie. These work against the gritty authenticity director Niels Arden Oplev brought to the first movie.

Through it all, Lisbeth Salander and the talented actor who plays her, Noomi Rapace, still keep you interested. Rapace’s tiny build and tough demeanor embody the contradictions of Lisbeth — sexy yet steely, victimized but never a victim. She stays true to Lisbeth, even when the script calls upon both actor and character to do things a viewer knows they wouldn’t do. And she makes us want to see how the trilogy will end.

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