The Girl in the Spider's Web

The moment Lisbeth Salander drives a Ducati across a frozen lake while dodging sniper fire, I realized we weren't in Stockholm anymore. Or rather, we were, but it was a Stockholm that had been renovated into a level of Call of Duty. In 2011, David Fincher gave us a cold, methodical, and deeply uncomfortable procedural with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Seven years later, director Fede Álvarez decided what the world really needed was a soft reboot that reimagined the world’s most famous gothic hacker as a Swedish James Bond.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while nursing a mug of tea that had gone tragically lukewarm, which, in hindsight, was a fairly accurate temperature for my reaction to the film. It isn't a disaster, but it is a fascinating case study in how the late 2010s obsessed over turning every recognizable piece of IP into a high-stakes action franchise.

From Social Critique to Superheroics

The Millennium series has always been about "men who hate women"—a grim look at systemic corruption and the rot beneath the surface of polite society. But The Girl in the Spider's Web isn't interested in journalism or the slow burn of an investigation. It’s an action movie, through and through. Claire Foy takes over the mantle of Lisbeth Salander, and while she’s a phenomenal actress (as anyone who saw The Crown can attest), she’s given a version of Lisbeth who feels more like a superhero than a human being.

Claire Foy plays Lisbeth with a haunted, bird-like intensity, but the script asks her to do things like outrun massive explosions and use "hacker magic" to control sniper rifles remotely. The stakes have shifted from "exposing a killer" to "saving the world from a nuclear launch program." By turning a trauma survivor into a leather-clad Batman with a laptop, the movie loses the grounded, jagged edge that made the character iconic in the first place.

Sverrir Gudnason steps into the role of Mikael Blomkvist, but he’s barely a character here. He’s essentially Lisbeth’s sidekick, a far cry from the central protagonist role held by Daniel Craig or Michael Nyqvist in previous iterations. Even the wonderful LaKeith Stanfield (fresh off his breakout in Get Out) feels stranded as an NSA agent who shows up to provide tech support and look cool in a long coat.

The Álvarez Aesthetic

If there is a reason to watch this, it’s the visuals. Fede Álvarez is a master of tension—his work on the Evil Dead remake and Don’t Breathe proved he knows how to make an audience squirm. He brings that same eye for claustrophobia to this film. There is one sequence involving a vacuum-seal bag that is genuinely terrifying and reminds you of the director's horror roots.

The action choreography is slick, and the cinematography by Pedro Luque is all icy blues and stark blacks. It looks expensive. The stunt work is impressive, particularly the vehicle chases through the snowy woods. However, the film suffers from the "chaos cinema" editing style of the era, where the rhythm of the action sometimes outpaces the logic of the scene. It’s a movie that moves fast so you don't have time to ask why Lisbeth’s estranged sister, played by a very blonde Sylvia Hoeks (the standout villain from Blade Runner 2049), has decided to become a Bond villain in a red leather suit.

The Franchise That Wasn't

The 2018 cinematic landscape was a brutal place for mid-budget adult thrillers. We were at the height of the MCU’s dominance, and if you weren't a literal superhero, you had to try to look like one. The Girl in the Spider's Web tried to bridge that gap and ended up satisfying almost no one. It lacked the intellectual depth of the original books/Swedish films and lacked the sheer fun of a true blockbuster.

It’s one of those "forgotten" films because it exists in a vacuum. It’s not a sequel to the Fincher film, but it’s not quite a fresh start either. It’s a stylistic exercise that feels like it was designed by a committee trying to figure out how to sell Lisbeth Salander toys. Even the addition of Stephen Merchant as a panicked scientist feels like a tonal misstep; he’s a great actor, but his presence briefly turns the movie into a different kind of thriller entirely.

Ultimately, The Girl in the Spider's Web is a well-made, handsomely shot action flick that unfortunately feels like it's wearing a costume it doesn't quite fit. It’s a "5-minute test" winner if you just want to see some cool stunts and Claire Foy looking moody in the snow, but it lacks the soul of its predecessors. It’s a slick, professional product of the franchise era that proved some characters are better off solving mysteries in the dark than jumping off buildings in the light of an explosion.