Girl in the Spiders Web (2018) [Blu-ray]
Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline: The Past Never Forgets

Lisbeth Salander, the cult figure and title character of the acclaimed Millennium book series created by Stieg Larsson, will return to the screen in The Girl in the Spider's Web, a first-time adaptation of the recent global bestseller.

Storyline: In Stockholm, Sweden, vigilante hacker Lisbeth Salander is hired by computer programmer Frans Balder to retrieve Firefall, a program capable of accessing the world's nuclear codes that he developed for the National Security Agency, as Balder believes it is too dangerous to exist. Lisbeth successfully retrieves Firefall from the NSA's servers, attracting the attention of agent Edwin Needham, but is unable to unlock it, and the program is later stolen from her by mercenaries led by Jan Holtser, who also attempt to kill Lisbeth. When she doesn't attend their scheduled rendezvous, Balder mistakenly believes Lisbeth decided to keep Firefall for herself and contacts Gabrielle Grane, the deputy director of the Swedish Security Service (Säpo), who moves Balder and his young son August to a safe-house. Meanwhile, Needham tracks the unauthorized login to Stockholm and arrives to seek Lisbeth and Firefall

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, February 8, 2019 The Girl in the Spider's Web could have easily been titled The Girl, the Director, and The Writer Who Stepped Into Really Big Shoes. Director Fede Alvarez, whose feature filmography to this point includes a remake of The Evil Dead as well as the very well received Don't Breathe, departs, but not fully, from the Horror genre to make a tonally dark Thriller based in the world of Swedish Author Stieg Larsson's acclaimed Millennium book series. Interestingly, The Girl in the Spider's Web is not sourced from one of Larsson's own works but rather characters he created, characters whose adventures have continued in works written by David Lagercrantz. This movie is based on the first of his Millennium novels. The series was previously adapted to film in its native Sweden and later in 2011 in the United States by legendary filmmaker David Fincher, who cast Rooney Mara to play the title character. For this 2018 soft reboot, Alvarez casts The Crown actress Claire Foy as protagonist Lisbeth Salander. The film amounts to little more than a rehash of stock components, a shadow of Fincher's much more complex work. Rather than layered themes and immense character depth, The Girl in the Spider's Web is instead a by-the-numbers Thriller with little working for it beyond atmosphere and Foy's performance.

Lisbeth Salander (Foy), a gifted computer hacker and a young woman more than capable of taking care of herself, finds herself in possession of "Firefall," Programmer Frans Balder's (Stephen Merchant) software originally developed for the U.S.' National Security Agency. The dangerous program allows the user to access and control the world's collective nuclear arsenal. Balder fears that the program will fall into the wrong hands, and indeed, various bad actors are in pursuit, including a now-dangerous acquaintance from Salander's youth. As she races to protect the program, she realizes that only Balder's son, the unusually gifted August (Christopher Convery), can access the program's unique and uncrackable password protections.

The Girl in the Spider's Web is a soft series reboot, taking the time to explore Salander's dark past and folding it into the danger she faces in the present. The film finds some success in exploring the character details, thanks largely to Foy's performance, but neither the core story -- the chase to acquire and unlock a very dangerous computer program -- nor the action ebbs and flows prove all that noteworthy. Alvarez's film plays like a series of careful calculations and permutations, executed to cinematic excellence but ringing hollow in most instances. There are a few good character moments, several highlight action scenes, and a fairly snazzy finale, but everything in between never gels, never invents, never asks the audience to invest all that deeply in the story. It's just so routine, right down to the desaturated and deemphasized colors. It's a perfectly serviceable film, but it's also perfectly forgettable.

The film does rise thanks to impressive work from Foy, who most recently portrayed Neil Armstrong's wife in the wonderful First Man and is best known for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in the ongoing television period drama The Crown. This is a transformative work for Foy and a total tonal shift from The Crown, both physically and emotionally. Her portrayal of a deeply wounded character, one who is consistently clad in black, wearing her emotions literally on her sleeve, is a role she melts into, and not simply because she cuts her hair, dons dark attire, and adds some piercings across her face. No, Foy uncovers the character from the inside out. Her outward appearance is important, but her inner workings are vital. Foy understands the character deeply and intimately, grasping beyond the basics of her genius and uncovering the character's soul, balancing all of the past and present components that have shaped it through the years. But the film almost doesn't seem to know what to do with the character. It's almost as if the filmmakers are trying to craft a new generation of Bond or Bourne with a fairly deep influence of Robert Langdon on the side. Maybe it's just this story's dynamics, but the character just never feels quite right, though certainly not because of Foy's work. Hopefully she will return for another go as the character in a future film that focuses more intimately on her rather than action and set pieces.

Claire Foy is the best part of The Girl in the Spider's Web. She's perfectly cast as Salander, though one wouldn't immediately think of her to play the part if watching The Crown. It's a credit to her skills as an actress that she so adeptly and intimately transforms, from the inside out, to play a very dark and alluring character. Unfortunately the rest of the film is fairly standard, with little dramatic value or narrative creativity in play. Alvarez capably crafts the film; it looks and feels right, but beyond Foy's work the picture is almost entirely devoid of a soul. In a sentence, it's more than watchable but almost entirely forgettable. Sony's Blu-ray delivers top-rate video and audio alongside a handful of good extras. Worth a look.

[CSW] -2.9- Although Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander is no Noomi Repace. Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a better story. The plot line was almost as good and had the script been better she would have would have been their equal and, like them, held the story together. But if you have not seen the other films, or read the wonderful books, you would not have related, her background should not have been left out. The plot is very hard to follow without Lisbeth's complete backstory as related in the earlier "Girl with/who…" trilogy. It is far easier to understand if you have seen or read those first three stories but the fourth was written after the original author died and lacks "something."
[V5.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box

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