The Premise
The Millennium have hired Dag Svenssen - unfortunately he and his wife are murdered while investigating a human trafficking ring. Lisbeth Salander is framed for their murders, and Mikael Blomkvist vows to clear her name.The Characters
Some characters, such as George Bland, were included as a matter of completeness, and I really don't have anything to say about them.Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. This film sees her kick a lot of physical ass - from torture scenes to hand-to-hand combat. Rapace carries it off like a pro, and you get the very real message that this woman is not to be fucked with. Interspersed with all that toughness are moments of tenderness. Rapace delivers those in superb fashion.
Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist. Nyqvist outdoes himelf here with plenty of dialogue with the others, conveying his shrewdness, patience, and utter inability to just give up. I especially liked the scenes of him with Dag, and their easy camaraderie translates well on screen. So much so that when Mikael eventually finds Dag and Mia dead, his shock and grief are just about palpable.
Lena Endre as Erika Berger. As with the last film, pretty much window dressing with dialogue. Seeing her naked in the film hasn't changed my opinion. Though I like what she's done with the hair this time round. It seems less messy somehow.
Micke Spreitz as Ronald Neidermann. Stoic and lumbering in the role. Physically imposing. Adequate job. Though perhaps just a tad too stoic.
Georgi Staykov as Alexander Zalachenko. The sinister villain of the entire movie. I like what the makeup department did with him. It wasn't overdone, and they made him just deformed enough, but without venturing into Batman supervillain territory. The chilly way the actor talks, as if detached from the evil he's about to perpetrate, really comes through.
Peter Andersson as Nils Bjurman. Now instead of the suave and creepy dude, we see the scared-shitless side of him. The actor did a fine job.
Hans Christian Thulin as Dag Svenssen. Conveys the whole boyish, idealistic and enthusiastic vibe very well. You can see that he's really meant to represent a younger, more energetic version of Mikael.
Jennie Silfverhjelm as Mia Bergman. I get that she's supposed to be a very smart woman, but in the film, she kind of takes a back seat to Dag, even more than in the novel. The actress did whatever she could with such a limited role, I guess.
Yasmin Garbi as Miriam Wu. Yasmin Garbi is amazing. She portrays the naughty, saucy side of Lisbeth's on-and-off lover, her bossiness towards Lisbeth in bed, her sarcarsm towards the police, and her refusal to take any shit even from a giant like Ronald Neidermann; all to a tee. Excellent work.
Paolo Roberto as... Paolo Roberto. This is so utterly badass - the boxer plays himself. And barring that scene where he gets his ass totally kicked by Neidermann, I really enjoyed watchng him.
Johan Kylén as Jan Bublanski. Exacty like how I pictured him, especially with the Rabbi hat on. Seeing him on-screen with Michael Nyqvist was like magic. Pity the script was cut short as to their interactions, because they played off each other so well.
Donald Högberg as Jerker Holmberg. Non-descript in the role, which was much more than the role of Curt Andersson had - guy was completely cut out.
Tanja Lorentzon as Sonia Modig. For some reason, I just couldn't see her in this role. Entire scenes with her just felt weak. But physically, she looked the part. Tough when needed, but not ripped. Frail when supposed to be displaying vulnerability, etc.
Magnus Krepper as Hans Faste. They could have done a lot more with another actor. The character of Hans Faste is supposed to elicit severe dislike. The actor didn't do it for me.
Niklas Hjulström as Richard Ekström. They chose a suitably rat-faced specimen for this role, no disrespect to the actor, who did a fine job portraying Ekstrom's ego and control freak tendencies.
Pelle Bolander as Sonny Nieminen. The part where he gets tasered right in the crotch is just too precious. Kudos to the actor for portraying getting his ass kicked so well!
Thomas Lindblad as Magge Lundin. Another honorable mention. Didn't have much to do other than look like a brute and get his ass handed to him. But that was the best scene!
Anders Ahlbom as Peter Teleborian. Creepy dude. Outstanding job by xxxx. Look forward t seeing him in the final installment, where according to the novel, he'll feature even more prominently.
Annika Hallin as Annika Gianninni. There's more of her in this film, and we see her interact more with Mikael. Not as much as I would have liked, but if the film follows the novels somewhat faithfully, we'll see a lot more of her in the sequel.
Ralph Carlsson as Gunnar Bjorke. This guy was pretty memorable in the role. The understated look of worry and panic, from relaxed to shifty-eyed... near perfect.
Ola Wahlström as Per-Ǻke Sandström. Actor did a passable job there. He was supposed to elicit both disgust and pity, but the performance just felt a little... flat.
Per Oscarsson as Holger Palmgren. Not really what I pictured, but the actor's performance grew on me. He was somehow believable as the compassionate curmudgeon suffering from a stroke.
Tomas Köhler as Plague, though mostly from a web chat screen. Still, excellent work by Köhler. I could be biased here. I love Plague.
Olga Henrikson as Irina Hammujärvi . She appears right at the beginning in a gratuitous topless scene, being raped by Sandström. I'm not sure what purpose the actress served - she barely had any lines and her character's name was mentioned in passing for all of a few seconds.
Richard Barry as Jerry McMillan. We don't see much of the actor and his role is even more limited here than in the novel, but what a delightfully British accent.
Michalis Koutsogiannakis as Dragan Armansky. He gets a nice scene with Lisbeth, giving her a stern lecture, and that's about it.
Sofia Ledarp as Malin Eriksson, Jacob Ericksson as Christer Malm. As with the last movie, neither of them have much to do. They're basically just part of the scenery.
The Mood
The movie opens with the grim scene of a naked man raping a girl who's tied to a bedpost. The man's name is Per-Ǻke Sandström, as we later find out, and he's part of a human trafficking ring. From there, the atmosphere turns investigative as The Millennium takes in Dag Svenssen for a new project involving a slavery ring. Things heat up when Dag and Mia, and Bjurman are murdered, but things still move slowly as Jan Bublanski and hs team investigate. Lisbeth moves a whole lot faster once she finds out abut the murders (and her supposed role in them) and from then on there's more ass-kicking, interspersed with a lot of talking.What I liked
A minor point, but I really dig the Green Lantern t-shirt the waiter in the background is wearing.
The scene where Mikael gives Dag a pro tip called the "lottery tricket" is pretty funny. It amused me in the novel and I'm glad they preserved it in film.
They cut out much of the irrelevant scenes involving Lisbeth studying her math equations, and just showed a couple minutes of her with George Bland. Works for me.
Seeing Nils Bjurman grovel when Lisbeth intimidates him, never gets old. Alas, by canon, he's slated to die in this film.
The sex scene between Miriam Wu and Lisbeth Salander doesn't run on too long. The nice thing about it is that our badass ultra-violent hacker looks like a doe-eyed small girl when Miriam makes a move on her. Also, the bikini tan lines on Noomi Rapace's body add some authencity to the fact that Lisbeth Salander had spent months living by the sea.
The scene between Palmer Holdgren and Lisbeth Salander when she visits him at the nursing home was just as good as I thought it would be. We see Lisbeth smile, and she didn't do that at all in the whole of the first movie. It's one of those moments that Noomi Rapace pulls off brilliantly.
I didn't expect to enjoy the scene where Miriam Wu gets interrogated by Hans Faste and Sonia Modig, quite so much. Though the slap Sonia gives Hans at the end felt a little abrupt, and weak.
Mikael reaping the results of the "Lottery Tricket". Handled it like a pro, and watching Gunnar Bjork's expression turn from anticipation to dread, was awesome.
The entire Sandström torture scene. I like the setting they chose for his home. The guitars just seemed oddly appropriate.
Lisbeth in scary Crowface. Enough said.
The initial fight between Ronald Neidermann and Miriam Wu when he kidnaps her. In the book, the resistance is over in a single round. Here in the film, he still beats her easily, but it's the instant reaction we see from Miriam Wu that impresses me. She doesn't hesitate a second and goes on the offensive an instant after dodging the initial blow. In an average woman without training, this would have been over much faster. But Miriam's reflex action strikes me as commendable attention to detail on the part of the filmmaker - she's, after all, a kickboxing practitioner.
Lisbeth kicking the arses of Sonny and Magge was just as sweet a scene as the novel suggested. Every important detail was faithfully reproduced - including Sonny getting tasered right in the crotch!
The seriously disturbed look on Mikael's face as he watches the recording of Bjurman raping Lisbeth. Michael Nyqvist nails it here.
What I didn't
The beginning scene seemed just a few seconds too long. I could have gone without seeing Per-Ǻke Sandström's white saggy ass bounce as he raped Irina on the bed.When we get to Dag and Mia's bodies being found, it feels a little abrupt. Perhaps this is intentional, for maximum shock value. Or, more likely, they cut a big chunk of the novel out of the film and couldn't make the result seamless enough.
The entirety of the Bublanski investigation dragged on quite a bit for me, though I suppose it was necessary to the plot.
Dammit, no Curt Andersson?!
The fight between Paolo Roberto and Ronald Neidermann turned out to be a disappointment. Paolo was supposed to win this one, albeit with some help from Miriam Wu. Instead, Neidrmann kicks both their asses and leaves them for dead in a burning barn. What the hell warranted that deviation from the novel? I don't mind changes if the changes make sense, but this struck me as change for the sheer hell of it.
When Lisbeth raids Bjurman's cabin for clues, she wears gloves. Later on, she removes them and even smokes a cigarette. I don't get it - that just seems really sloppy to me. I thought the entire point was not to leave clues like fingerprints and cigarette ash behind?
Here, we see that she's got her gloves back on and even stubs her cigarette out on the ladder before putting it in her pocket. What the hell, Lisbeth? Why suddenly so careful? How about a little consistency here?!
Gratuitous shots of Lisbeth pensively smoking at the gorgeous view from her equally gorgeous home. It was cool the first couple times, but after a while, it got repetitive.
Lisbeth deactivates her security remotely for Mikael instead of Mikael figuring it out himself. Damn.
Zalachenko is supposed to have two fingers missing from his left hand. In the movie, both his hands seem fine.
In the novel, Ronald Neidermann runs from Lisbeth, consumed by superstitious fear as the half-sister he buried the night before appears bloodied and deranged before him, with a gun. In the film, he just runs around while she shoots at him, and only flees when Mikael drives up. This deprives the character of valuable nuance - while he's nigh indestructible, he feels irrational fear.
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