Review: The Girl In The Spider's Web

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Claire Foy slips easily into the role of Lisbeth Salander, the Swedish hacker and avenging angel for women abused by men, in "The Girl in the Spider's Web," which is based on the novel by David Lagercrantz that picks up the story from Stieg Larsson's original trilogy. It's too bad that this fourth entry in the series - which has been split up between American and Swedish adaptations - is the weakest film in this franchise to date.

The original "Girl" films were entertaining, if occasionally improbable, thrillers that followed the exploits of the tattooed Salander and her friend and occasional lover, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (played here by Sverrir Gudnason). In this latest entry, Salander is seemingly a full-time vigilante. At the film's beginning, we see her freeing the wife of an abusive business magnate. Prior to that, there's a prelude in which young Lisbeth frees herself from her sexually abusive criminal father, leaving her sister behind.

The plot in "Spider's Web" is semi-convoluted and involves some sort of weapons system that Lisbeth has stolen from the Americans to give back to the scientist (Stephen Merchant) who invented it, only to have it then stolen from her by her sister - who, as it turns out, is not only not dead, but has taken over their father's dirty business - and find herself being trailed by an American NSA worker and former marine (LaKeith Stanfield).

After nearly being killed herself, Lisbeth ends up becoming the caretaker for the scientist's young son, whose ability to understand the codes for the weapons program stretches the imagination slightly, and teaming up with Mikael and Stanfield's Needham to prevent it from falling into the hands of her sister and her cronies. Meanwhile, in a somewhat tired thriller plot line, Salander herself becomes the principal suspect in a series of killings relating to the theft of the weapons system.

Foy makes a convincing Salander, but one of the film's problems is that it completely dials down many of the elements that made her intriguing, such as her bottled up rage and proclivity towards bisexuality. Instead, here she is closer to a Wonder Woman action star, rather than a crusader against a misogynistic society.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that Hollywood is now banking on female action movies, but Salander's character has always been more interesting than someone who just totes a gun. "Spider's Web" isn't a bad movie, just a missed opportunity.