The Girl in the Spider’s Web

The formidable Swedish vigilante Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson’s Millennium thriller trilogy is back, here portrayed by Claire Foy, best known as young Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix series The Crown. Her story opens with an ominous flashback as adolescent Lisbeth and her sister Camilla are summoned to the bedroom of their Russian crime lord father. Aware of his perverted intentions, Lisbeth jumps off a high balcony into a blizzard to escape. After suffering a traumatic childhood, motorcycle-riding Lisbeth—armed with a Taser—terrorizes Stockholm as a defender of abused women. The only men she trusts are her ex-lover, married journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason), who wrote and published her story, and high-tech hacker “Plague” (Cameron Britton). Contacted by terrified, soon-to-be-killed programmer Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), intrepid Lisbeth acquires his pilfered “Firefall” software that controls the world’s nuclear weapons. But only Balder’s 6-year-old autistic savant son (Christopher Convery) knows how to decipher the access code. Lisbeth is supposed to deliver Firefall to an NSA security expert (Lakeith Stanfield), but the briefcase is stolen by a sinister crime syndicate called the Spiders, which is connected to her estranged sister Camilla (Sylvia Hoeks) and Gabriella Grane (Synnøve Macody Lund), deputy director of the Swedish Secret Service. After Larsson’s death in 2004, author David Lagercrantz transformed Lisbeth’s character into a bisexual super sleuth, and his titular 2015 novel is here adapted by director Fede Álvarez. Foy is a far more skilled actress than 2011 feature film predecessor Rooney Mara, but Álvarez is no David Fincher, and Gudnason cannot effectively replace Daniel Craig. An unfocused, far-fetched, and ultimately forgettable espionage-thriller, this is an optional purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Fede Álvarez and screenwriter Jay Basu, and the production featurettes “Creating the World” (16 min.) and “All About the Stunts” (7 min.). Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are deleted scenes (16 min.), the behind-the-scenes featurettes “Claire Foy: Becoming Lisbeth” (10 min.) and “Secrets of the Salander Sisters” (5 min.), and bonus DVD and digital copies of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a disappointing franchise entry.] (S. Granger)