The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

The final part of the Millennium trilogy is a vast improvement on the previous one, even if it does require the viewer to have near-perfect recall of events and characters encountered so far (I literally had no memory of one person frequently mentioned) Our spiky, resourceful heroine is also in subdued mode for most of the film as she first recovers from the near fatal injuries sustained at the end of part 2, and then as she is put on trial for murder (her silence means her opponents underestimate her) However, this does throw into relief those rare moments when she permits herself a smile, the meanings of which are numerous (compare the one upon heraing of her father's death to that with which she greets an illicit pizza delivery) Like part 2, this film keeps Mikael and Lisbeth apart for most of the running time, although the plot strands are inextricably entwined, and avoids any romantic resolution. Another intriguing oddity is the sight of elderly spymasters carrying out the nefarious activities necessary to protect a decades-old conspiracy (one dies of a heart attack after an assassination while another needs weekly dialysis). Not that their frailty makes them any less deadly. The main gripe is the reappearance of the indestructible half-brother, though at least this time he's kept to the margins though he still feels like a renegade character from a 1970s Bond film.