7/10/10

Wild At Heart - movie review

Wild Bill Ketelhut provides the "blog" to this anti-blog
He has a radio program on WXOU out of Oakland University

Wild At Heart





"The Girl Who Played with Fire" is a second part of 'Millennium' trilogy and a sequel to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' which hit area theatres last fall to much acclaim. The movies are based on the international best sellers by by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson. This film came out the same year as the first but features a new director in Daniel Alfredson. Taking place about a year after the first film, our favorite goth girl man-hater Lisbeth Salander returns to Sweden but instead of having a nice time, she falls under suspicion for having committed the murder of a journalist and his girlfriend as well as her guardian Nils Bjurman. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist who was working with the murdered couple gets involved in tracking down the leads to expose a sex trafficking ring in Sweden and those in high office who abuse underage girls. Blomkvist and Salander both work by themselves to the climatic ending where they must face a notorious gangster and brute of a bodyguard. A lot of people are not as much in love with this movie as the first but I think it stands up nicely.

There are a few plot holes (what is the relationship between Blomkvist and Erika) but it is a different beast and the performances by our two protagonists carry the script well despite that. I would have liked to see the main villain have a little more face time with Lisbeth as well as a few more confrontations with the officials under suspicion of the sex trade allegations. I think that might have strengthened the film in general since most of the secondary characters are forgettable or are on screen too short. Despite it's flaws, I feel the film is almost as good as the first though maybe a bit less atmospheric. My grade is a B.