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Created Jul 10, 2010 09:41PM PST • Edited Mar 03, 2013 03:15PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Noomi Rapace returns as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in this second movie of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy novels. A feminist Jason Bourne, her Lisbeth Salander operates with deadly derring do on-the-net, off-the-grid and in the grills of rapists. Wow. Even a red blooded dude like me can cheer this kind of smart cinematic action. You go grrrl.

   Released here in the States just a few months after the first installment, The Girl Who Played with Fire niftily fills in the blanks about Lisbeth Salander’s horrific childhood, notably providing a paternity surprise that rivals in drama Darth’s declaration to Luke. Who’s your Daddy, indeed.

   This is feminist revenge fantasy of the first order: porn for rape victims. Yet it also works for audiences with little interest in sexual politics. Action, crime and foreign movie fans alike will appreciate it as a fast moving, hard hitting and niftily plotted thriller. Politics be damned.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Noomi Rapace & Michael Nyqvist are fun names to say. Try ’em 3 times.

   Plus they’re terrific actors, Rapace singularly so.

   Describing her in the initial installment as “an appropriately radical figure: slim and boyish, tough and agile, hard and true,” it’s now safe to say she’s become one of the great undercover agents in movie history. Anti-hero, avenger, tomboy, woman: Rapace embodies the Platonic ideal of female self-empowerment in the face of monstrous injustice.

   Michael Nyqvist upholds his end of the bargain as the heroic Lefty journalist who gets to uncover injustice in the established power structure and sleep with his boss. Ain’t Sweden sweet.

   Other notables:

   • Johan Kylén as Inspector Jan Bublanski, who gets a call in Shul to work on the case. Turn off your phone mensch.
   • Micke Spreitz as the huge blond lug who serves as the evil mastermind’s henchman.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    There’s a new team behind the camera for this second installment, and apparently for the upcoming third one also: Daniel Alfredson directing from Jonas Frykberg’s adaption of Larsson’s novel. While their film is not as seamlessly kinetic as the first, it still holds its own better than, say, Quantum of Solace did in following up Casino Royale. In short, the Millennium franchise continues rapace.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Great 4.0

    Larsson’s view of people and society is so dark, so twisted, no wonder he killed himself.

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Horrid 3.8

    Rape committed and avenged provides the primal force behind this and the other two Millennium Trilogy movies. Be warned.

17. Sex Erotic 3.4

    A lesbian love scene nicely heats up the middle reel.

18. Violence Savage 4.0

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.0

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.2

    Hollywood Swedish style: People get the bejezus beaten out of them and come away with just bruises. Oh, and the big bad guy has a genetic condition so he doesn’t feel pain. Fine, but pain is nature’s way of telling the body that it’s being injured. So just because he doesn’t feel pain doesn’t mean he’s not being injured, except he doesn’t get injured. Why? Because the BioReality is Surreal.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Surreal 3.0

24. Physical Glib 1.5